SALERNO
OPERATION AVALANCHE INVASION OF ITALY 1943 KESSELRING ALEXANDER CLARK 5TH
ARMY
OSPREY CAMPAIGN No.257 SOFTBOUND
BOOK by ANGUS KONSTAM
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Additional Information from
Internet Encyclopedia
Operation Avalanche was the
codename for the Allied landings near the port of Salerno, executed on 9
September 1943, part of the Allied invasion of Italy. The Italians withdrew
from the war the day before the invasion, but the Allies landed in an area defended
by German troops. Planned under the name Top Hat, it was supported by the
deception plan Operation Boardman.
The landings were carried out by
the US Fifth Army, under American General Mark W. Clark. It comprised the U.S.
VI Corps, the British X Corps and the US 82nd Airborne Division, a total of
about nine divisions. Its primary objectives were to seize the port of Naples
to ensure resupply, and to cut across to the east coast, trapping the Axis
troops further south.
In order to draw troops away
from the landing ground, Operation Baytown was mounted. This was a landing by
the British Eighth Army in Calabria in the 'toe' of Italy, on 3 September.
Simultaneous sea landings were made by the British 1st Airborne Division at the
port of Taranto (Operation Slapstick). British General Bernard Montgomery had
predicted Baytown would be a waste of effort because it assumed the Germans
would give battle in Calabria; if they failed to do so, the diversion would not
work. He was proved correct. After Baytown the Eighth Army marched 300 miles
(480 km) north to the Salerno area against no opposition other than engineer
obstacles.
The Salerno landings were
carried out without previous naval or aerial bombardment in order to achieve
surprise. Surprise was not achieved. As the first wave approached the shore at
Paestum a loudspeaker from the landing area proclaimed in English, "Come
on in and give up. We have you covered." The troops attacked nonetheless.
The Germans had established
artillery and machine-gun posts and scattered tanks through the landing zones
which made progress difficult, but the beach areas were captured. Around 07:00
a concerted counterattack was made by the 16th Panzer Division. It caused heavy
casualties, but was beaten off. Both the British and the Americans made slow
progress, and still had a 10 miles (16 km) gap between them at the end of day
one. They linked up by the end of day two and occupied 35�45 miles (56�72 km)
of coastline to a depth of 6�7 miles (9.7�11.3 km).
Over 12�14 September the Germans
organized a concerted counterattack by six divisions of motorized troops,
hoping to throw the Salerno beachhead into the sea before it could link with
the British Eighth Army. Heavy casualties were inflicted, as the Allied troops
were too thinly spread to be able to resist concentrated attacks. The outermost
troops were therefore withdrawn in order to reduce the perimeter. The new
perimeter was held with the assistance of naval and aerial support, although
the German attacks reached almost to the beaches in places. Allied fighter
pilots slept under the wings of their aircraft, in order to beat a hasty
retreat to Sicily in the event German forces broke the beachhead.
Following the defeat of the Axis
Powers in North Africa, there was disagreement between the Allies as to what
the next step should be. Winston Churchill in particular wanted to invade
Italy, which he called the "underbelly of Europe" (commonly misquoted
as "soft underbelly"). Popular support in Italy for the war was declining,
and he believed an invasion would remove Italy, and thus the influence of the
Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the Mediterranean Sea, opening it to Allied
traffic. This would make it much easier to supply Allied forces in the Middle
East and Far East, and increase British and American supplies to the Soviet
Union. In addition, it would tie down German forces, keeping them away from the
planned invasion of Normandy � Operation Overlord.
However, General George Marshall
and much of the American staff wanted to undertake no operations that might
delay the Normandy invasion. When it became clear that Operation Overlord could
not be undertaken in 1943, it was agreed forces in North Africa should be used
to invade Sicily, with no commitment made to any follow-up operations.
Joint Allied Forces Headquarters
AFHQ were operationally responsible for all Allied land forces in the
Mediterranean theatre and it was they who planned and commanded the invasion of
Sicily and the Italian mainland.
The Allied invasion of Sicily in
July 1943, codenamed Operation Husky, was highly successful, although many of
the Axis forces there were allowed to avoid capture and escape to the mainland.
More importantly a coup deposed Benito Mussolini as head of the Italian
government, which then began approaching the Allies to make peace. It was
believed a quick invasion of Italy might hasten an Italian surrender and
produce quick military victories over the German troops that would now be
trapped fighting in a hostile country. However, Italian (and more so German)
resistance proved relatively strong, and fighting in Italy continued even after
the fall of Berlin. In addition, the invasion left the Allies in a position of
supplying food and supplies to conquered territory, a burden which would
otherwise have fallen on Germany. As well, Italy occupied by a hostile German
army would have created additional problems for the German Commander-in-Chief
Albrecht von Kesselring.
The main landings were scheduled
one week later, 9 September 1943. The main force would land around Salerno on
the western coast in Operation Avalanche. It would consist of the US Fifth Army
under General Mark W. Clark, comprising the U.S. VI Corps under Ernest J.
Dawley, the X British Corps under Richard McCreery, and the US 82nd Airborne
Division in reserve, a total of about nine divisions. Its primary objectives
were to seize the port of Naples to ensure resupply, and to cut across to the
east coast, trapping Axis troops further south. The inclusion of the 82nd
Airborne as a reserve force was possible only with the cancellation of
Operation Giant II. The 1st British Airborne would be landed by sea near
Taranto, on the "heel" of Italy in Operation Slapstick, as a
diversion for Salerno. Their task was to capture the port and several nearby
airfields and link with the Eighth Army before pressing north to join the Fifth
Army near Foggia.
The plan was deeply flawed. The
5th Army would be landing on a very broad 35-mile front, using only three
assault divisions, and the two corps were widely separated both in distance and
by a river. Furthermore, the terrain was highly favorable to the defender. A
Ranger force under Colonel William O. Darby consisting of three US Ranger
battalions and two British Commando units was tasked with holding the mountain
passes leading to Naples, but no plan existed for linking the Ranger force up
with X Corps' follow-up units. Finally, although tactical surprise was
unlikely, Clark ordered no naval preparatory bombardment take place, despite
experience in the Pacific Theatre demonstrating it was absolutely necessary.
Approximately eight German
divisions were positioned to cover possible landing sites, including the
Hermann Goering Division, 26th and 16th Panzer, the 15th and 29th
Panzergrenadier, and the 1st and 2nd Fallschirmj�ger.
At Salerno the decision had been
taken to assault without previous naval or aerial bombardment, in order to
secure surprise. Tactical surprise was not achieved, as the naval commanders
had predicted. As the first wave approached the shore at Paestum a loudspeaker
from the landing area proclaimed in English, "Come on in and give up. We
have you covered." The troops attacked nonetheless.
The Germans had established
artillery and machine-gun posts and scattered tanks through the landing zones
which made progress difficult, but the beach areas were successfully taken.
Around 07:00 a concerted counterattack was made by the 16th Panzer division. It
caused heavy casualties, but was beaten off with naval gunfire support. Both
the British and the Americans made slow progress, and still had a 10 mile gap
between them at the end of day one. They linked up by the end of day two and
occupied 35�45 miles of coast line to a depth of six or seven miles.
During September 12�14 the
Germans organized a concerted counterattack with six divisions of motorised
troops, hoping to throw the Salerno beachhead into the sea before it could link
with the British 8th Army. Heavy casualties were inflicted, as the Allied
troops were too thinly spread to be able to resist concentrated attacks. The
outermost troops were therefore withdrawn in order to reduce the perimeter. The
new perimeter was held with the assistance of 4000 paratroopers from the 82nd
and 509th PIB who air dropped near the hot spots, from strong naval gunfire support,
and from well-served Fifth Army artillery. The German attacks reached almost to
the beaches but ultimately failed.
General Clark was awarded the
Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest US award for valor in combat,
for his front-line leadership during this crisis. He was frequently seen in the
most forward positions encouraging the troops. However, in the estimate of
historian Carlo D'Este, Clark's poor planning of the operation caused the
crisis in the first place.
The Salerno battle was also the
site of a mutiny by about 600 men of the British 10th Corps, who on September
16 refused assignment to new units as replacements. They had previously
understood that they would be returning to their own units from which they had
been separated during the fighting in the North African Campaign, mainly
because they had been wounded. Eventually the Corps commander, McCreery,
persuaded most of the men to follow their orders. The NCOs who led the mutiny
were sentenced to death, but were eventually allowed to rejoin units and the
sentence was not carried out.
The German 10th Army had come
very close to overwhelming the Salerno beachhead. The Allies had been fortunate
that at this time Adolf Hitler had sided with the view of his Army Group
commander in Northern Italy, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, and decided that
defending Italy south of Rome was not a strategic priority. As a result, the
Army Group Commander in southern Italy, Field Marshall Albert Kesselring had
been forbidden to call upon reserves from the northern Army Group. The
subsequent success of the German 10th Army's defensive campaign in inflicting
very heavy casualties on both U.S. 5th and British 8th Armies and Kesselring's
strategic arguments that the Allies should be kept as far away from Germany as
possible led Hitler to change his mind in October at which point he withdrew
Rommel to oversee the build-up of defenses in northern France and gave
Kesselring command of the whole of Italy with a remit to keep Rome in German
hands for the longest time possible.
Further Allied advances
With the Salerno beachhead
secure, the 5th Army could begin to attack northwest towards Naples. The 8th
Army had been making quick progress from the "toe" in the face of
German engineer delaying actions and linked with the 1st Airborne Division on
the Adriatic coast. It united the left of its front with the 5th Army's right
on 16 September, and advancing up the Adriatic coast captured the airfields
near Foggia on 27 September. Foggia was a major Allied objective because the
large airfield complex there would give the Allied air forces the ability to
strike new targets in France, Germany and the Balkans. The 5th Army captured
Naples on 1 October, and reached the line of the Volturno River on October 6.
This provided a natural barrier, securing Naples, the Campanian Plain and the
vital airfields on it from counterattack. Meanwhile, on the Adriatic coast, the
British 8th Army had advanced to a line from Campobasso to Larino and Termoli
on the Biferno river.
Thus, by early October, the
whole of southern Italy was in Allied hands, and the Allied armies now stood
facing the Volturno Line, the first of a series of prepared defensive lines
running across Italy from which the Germans chose to fight delaying actions,
giving ground slowly and buying time to complete their preparation of the
Winter Line, their strongest defensive line south of Rome. The next stage of
the Italian Campaign became for the Allied armies a grinding and attritional
slog against skillful, determined and well prepared defenses in terrain and
weather conditions which favoured defense and hampered the Allied advantages in
mechanised equipment and air superiority. It took until mid-January 1944 to
fight through the Volturno, Barbara and Bernhardt lines to reach the Gustav
Line, the backbone of the Winter Line defenses, setting the scene for the four
Battles of Monte Cassino which took place between January and May 1944.