The Italian Campaign continued.

'You gents relax, we got three inches of armor'

(There's bittersweet irony in the tank commanders comments, as the Sherman's thin armor could not stop an 88MM shell.)

The allied attack continued under appalling conditions, roads washed out, the bridges over the Foglia were all washed downstream, artillery had to be pulled by bulldozers and there was no air support. The war in Italy had degenerated into a war of attrition, who would run out of infantry first? The allies did. From September 10th to October 28th, the Fifth Army had suffered 17,388 casualties, most of them from the four U.S. infantry divisions, the British also suffered similar casualties. The Germans had also taken heavy losses, but, since they were not attacking the losses did not have the same effect on their fighting capability. The final straw came in late October when the allies finally ran out of artillery ammunition, Clark ordered the Fifth Army to go over to the defensive and the Eighth Army stopped for the winter. The 15th Army Group finally received some reinforcements in the form of the black 92nd Division, the U.S. 10th Mountain Division and a Brazilian division. An Italian offensive mounted the day after Christmas was the only major fighting that took place during a four month period, one regiment of the 92nd simply 'melted away' before the Axis advance, but the 8th Indian Division behind them stood fast and the offensive ran out of steam quickly. Much debate ensued concerning the poor performance of the black division and the comments ranged from the 'blacks can't fight' attitude to the more correct 'the division was not trained properly and had a high proportion of unfit troops placed in it'. Truman eventually accepted that the real reason was that blacks saw no reason to fight bravely when they were treated as second class citizens, given unimportant missions, denied high command in their own division and disgraced by segregated officerand NCO clubs. Truman intergrated the army in 1951.

The long prepared for allied offensive began on April Fools day, 1945, carpet bombing (using 175,000 fragmentation bombs) and heavy artillery bombardment preceded the attack. Flamethrower equipped tanks and amphibious, lake crossing, personnel carriers surprised the Germans, by April 20th both allied armies had broken out from the mountains and were racing across the Po Valley. Kesselring's troops had always counted on the Po River being another defensive line, but allied aircraft had destroyed all the bridges and now the river became a death trap. Many German troops escaped by swimming across the Po or using small boats, but all the heavy equipment was left behind. The allies used their bridging equipment and soon crossed the Po to began racing towards the Alps. By April 28th, all passes through the Alps were in allied hands prohibiting any more escape, and, on April 29th, General Vietinghoff, who had replaced Kesselring, surrendered his army group effective May 2nd.

The long, bloody campaign in Italy was over.

The German representative signs the official surrender document.

Postscript:

The arguments over the value of the Italian campaign continue to this day, undoubtedly the Germans had to commit divisions that could have been used elsewhere, but could the Italian Campaign have achieved the same results with fewer allied casualties? The answer will never be known. For the 536,000 Germans who became casualties under the superior allied air and artillery power the end result would probably have been the same.

It is the ghosts of the 312,000 allied personnel that became casualties because of bad planning, terrible weather conditions and mistakes by their commanders, who still cry out for the answer to that question.

You "forgotten heroes" of Italy have indeed earned your place in history.

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