The Gothic Line Read online

  He did not, however, change their roles. V Corps was still the breakthrough unit, despite the fact that it must advance through mountainous terrain “ill-suited for vehicle movement of any kind. Stretching ahead was a continuous succession of high hills rising to the massif on which perched the Republic of San Marino. Only minor roads ran through [V Corps’s] sector, and these could easily be blocked by Germans holding the peaks,” one commentator later wrote.3 Leese seemed to believe he could break through the German defences wherever he pleased without regard to topography.4

  Leese’s instructions for the overall offensive were short and to the point. The line, he said, must be broken quickly. Consequently, the largest city in the line of advance—Pesaro—would be bypassed and left to the Poles to mop up. Beyond Pesaro, the Canadians would extend their line to the coast, effectively pinching the Poles out of the advance and freeing them for the mopping-up operation. The key obstacles in the Canadians’ path were expected to be a series of three heights standing between the Foglia and Metauro rivers and the Monteluro–Tomba di Pesaro ridge feature to the west of Pesaro and immediately behind the Gothic Line’s main fortifications. The sooner the Canadian Corps’ armour reached Cattolica the better. Leese wanted to hit the Germans hard, pierce the line, and bull ahead so quickly the enemy had no time to regroup.5

  While Leese started moving his two other corps to the Adriatic, the Poles were to continue their slow advance. Leese expressed the hope they might reach the Metauro River before the other two corps arrived. Ideally, they would have forced a crossing and seized the Monteluro–Tomba di Pesaro ridge. As the Poles were noted for reckless assaults that incurred heavy casualties, Leese cautioned the Polish deputy commander not to win a crossing over the Metauro at a price that left the corps too weak to isolate and mop up Pesaro.6 Leese left it to the respective corps commanders and their staffs to work out actual plans for both the attack and the movement from Foligno to the Adriatic.

  After Leese and his staff departed, Burns and Keightley met privately. The forty-three-year-old Keightley had just been promoted from command of the British 78th Division to corps command on August 3—replacing Lieutenant General Charles Allfrey. Keightley’s promotion made him the British army’s youngest lieutenant general and the only one not to have seen service in World War I. Burns found the ability of the two men to always agree quickly on matters “a most happy circumstance.”7 Both generals were skeptical that the Poles could even reach the Metauro River, let alone win a crossing. Shifted from the west to the Adriatic coast after the conclusion of the Liri Valley Battle, the Poles had followed a bloody trail north from Ortona to Ancona. Between heavy losses suffered during the fighting for Cassino and Monte Cassino and those since incurred on the Adriatic, they were very diminished. And the Poles had no reliable source of reinforcement. Instead, they drew most reinforcements from Polish conscripts captured from German formations. Although II Polish Corps had rebuilt itself several times in this unorthodox manner, there were never enough liberated Poles to bring the corps to even an approximation of full strength.

  Despite the fact that Leese’s quick change of plan left the entire Eighth Army offensive curiously weighted so that its greatest strength was concentrated in the foothills and lower mountains on the left flank, neither Burns nor Keightley questioned the decision. Clearly, I Canadian Corps was now attacking the sector of Gothic Line most suited for winning a rapid breakout—the very terrain advantage gain that had led to the decision to move the offensive from the central mountains to the Adriatic. Because of Leese’s adamant refusal to put British divisions under Burns’s command, however, the Canadians must break through here with nothing in reserve. At the same time, Keightley had “a small army” of five divisions and one armoured brigade, but faced a line of advance over rugged country ill suited for rapid exploitation of any hole it created in the German line.8

  During the following week, Burns met several times with II Polish Corps commander General Wladyslaw Anders. As Anders spoke no English and Burns no Polish, they conducted their meetings in French. Neither spoke that language particularly well, so their sentences were liberally sprinkled with fractured grammar. Somehow each officer managed to make himself understood. These meetings reassured Burns that the plucky Poles would in fact reach the Metauro River before the main offensive began.9

  Meanwhile, corps headquarters was abuzz with activity. “The general air of smug satisfaction among the informed staff personnel,” stated the official operational account, “contrasted sharply with the studied indifference of those who could only guess at the details of the impending operation. The weather remained hot and dry and the troops, barred from the pleasant little towns of Umbria which had been very little damaged by the rapid German retreat and which were inhabited by a class of people much superior to those of the southern towns, felt none too inclined to embark on the strict courses of training which were laid down for the remainder of their stay in the concentration area.”10

  The ban on entry by Canadian personnel into any villages was imposed to prevent the Germans learning the whereabouts of I Canadian Corps. In truth, Eighth Army intelligence staff worried that they might have previously been too clever by half. When Alexander had originally planned to drive through the central Apennines, a deception plan had been launched to convince German intelligence that the Canadians were forming up on the Adriatic coast to attack the Gothic Line. Canadians from various units had visited the Polish corps, making a point of flashing their regimental and corps shoulder flashes and the stitched marking of “Canada” on their shoulder straps before all and sundry. German spies and Italian informers duly reported what they saw. Now, the Canadians were to move precisely where Eighth Army’s intelligence officers knew the Germans probably expected them to appear.

  Hoping to throw the Germans off the scent, a counterdeception was initiated that saw 1st Canadian Infantry Division, then serving in the Florence line, suddenly don their identity patches and again become Canadians. This was also why all the telltale Canadian clues, including cigarette packages and the like, had been carelessly strewn into the Arno River for certain recovery by the Germans. This deception plan somehow failed, but it mattered little. The Germans not only missed the clues sown in Florence but also had earlier discounted the validity of the Adriatic deception. Instead, German intelligence believed the Canadians to be in reserve somewhere to the south.11

  WHILE LEESE AND his corps commanders were finalizing their plans, the divisional commanders raced to prepare for the forthcoming movement to the Adriatic coast. Major General Chris Vokes received a general briefing from Burns while his 1st Canadian Infantry Division was still in the process of withdrawing from the outskirts of Florence to a new concentration at Foligno, so could do little in the way of immediate preparations. His counterpart, Major General Burt Hoffmeister at 5th Canadian Armoured Division, however, was able to immediately put his men back on a combat footing. The much cherished afternoon siesta was cancelled and a demanding fitness regime instituted.12

  Hoffmeister had been grimly impressed by the preliminary information on the actual strength of the Gothic Line. “It was represented to me to be a particularly heavily fortified line,” he later said, “possibly even more so than the Hitler Line, with a huge antitank ditch running across the front of the whole thing, and the ground rising up and forming an ideal defensive position. . . . One thing about the Gothic Line was that it was in great depth, so it was fairly obvious that this was to be a set-piece attack, preceded by an air program using some heavy aircraft, followed by a very comprehensive artillery program using everything in the book.

  “It just shaped up as the major operation—the Hitler Line had been bad enough, but after all we’d broken through it. Other battles that we’d had we had won, but this one looked… a tremendous nut to crack.”13

  Before the operation could begin, however, I Canadian Corps and V British Corps had first to reach the Adriatic coast. This would be no mean feat. Each Canadia
n division had to manoeuvre about 450 medium tanks, 240 smaller tanks, 50 self-propelled guns, 320 armoured cars, 200 cars and jeeps, 2,000 half-tracks, and 10,000 trucks over the narrow winding mountain roads.14

  Initially, both corps were to have crossed the Apennines via Highway 3 running from Foligno to Fossato, then proceed down the eastern slope on Highway 76 to concentrate at Jesi, fifteen miles inland from Ancona. Eighth Army engineers quickly discovered that so many bridges on Highway 3 had been expertly demolished by the Germans, a diversion from Nocera to Fabriano had to be constructed that crossed the main Apennine ridge by “a series of hairpin bends” and extremely steep grades. Although this diversion was suitable for wheeled vehicles, it could not sustain tank and Bren carrier traffic because the tracks would tear up the hastily constructed road surface. Nor could the thirty-four-wheeled tank transporters easily negotiate the tight corners, so these massive juggernauts were largely eliminated from the movement scheme.15

  An alternate tank route was required. By August 8, no suitable road had been found, so I Canadian Corps’s chief engineer, Brigadier Colin Campbell, was instructed to build one forthwith and have it ready for use by August 15. He was to do so without jeopardizing the movement of wheeled vehicles via the already completed route and without any Bailey bridge material—all of this already in use on the other route.

  Before construction could begin, Campbell had to search the mountains and discover a suitable pass over which a one-way road capable of bearing hundreds of tracked vehicles could be hastily constructed. Two Canadian engineers, Lieutenant Colonel R.E. Wilkins and Lieutenant Colonel J.D. Christian, reconnoitred possible options and reported back in just a few hours. They believed a track could be constructed that ran from Camerino over a narrow pass to Castel Raimondo in the heights of the Apennines. From there, the Canadians could follow the Potenza River from its headwaters eastward to San Severino and then to Villa Potenza. A rough road could then cut north through a jumbled series of foothills to reach Jesi. Over the next three days, Canadian engineers traversed as much of the route as possible in jeeps in order to design a rough engineering plan. Some areas proved impassable even to jeeps, so Campbell and a few senior engineers studied these sections by plane and then worked up plans based on their observations.

  On August 9, even as this work was underway, 13th Field Company rushed equipment to Camerino and started improving the first section of track. The following day, 12th Field Company leapfrogged past them to start cutting a path from Castel Raimondo to San Severino. Campbell quickly realized these corps headquarters’ engineering companies were too small to finish the job on deadline. Accordingly, 5 CAD’s 14th Field Company was transferred to Campbell’s command and on the late afternoon of August 10 joined the road-building effort. Three days later, Campbell reported that he still had insufficient numbers of men and equipment to meet the August 14 completion deadline.16

  On the sunny Sunday of August 13, 1st Canadian Infantry Division’s engineers were enjoying a quiet day of rest at their base near Perugia. Lieutenant Colonel Ted Webb, 1 CID’s chief engineer, was away from headquarters when a frantic call demanded that he report immediately to the Chief Engineer’s Office at corps HQ and that all the division’s engineering companies must immediately prepare to execute a long move. “This was startling news,” the divisional engineer’s war diarist noted, “as all companies had unloaded their vehicles completely and were in the process of checking their equipment. The Divisional Bridging Platoon was also unloaded as 1 Canadian Field Company [was] attempting to get some Bailey bridge training.”17

  By the time Webb returned to his headquarters at noon, the division’s engineers were in a complete dither, wondering whether they should be loading gear into trucks or continuing with their inventory. After calling corps headquarters for instructions, Webb scheduled an Orders Group of company commanders for 1600 hours and advised everyone that the moment this meeting was completed all the division’s engineers would immediately move out on a major operation. At the O Group, Webb explained that the engineers were to head immediately to the Villa Potenza area to help complete the tank track. By nightfall, everyone except the headquarters unit was on the move. The latter remained to gather up stragglers “left behind as a result of the rapid move.” When these stragglers were all pulled in early the next morning, the last of the engineers decamped.18

  Webb had rushed ahead with the main body. As the engineering companies of 5 CAD and corps headquarters had already discovered, the actual roadwork proved easier than anticipated. The narrow, winding trails used as the base for the track’s construction were generally wide enough to accommodate Sherman tanks. There were, however, many small creeks and ditches requiring bridging. The engineers either slammed in culverts or cut diversions with bulldozers. By August 14, Webb reported 1 CID’s sections completed—the last engineering unit to get the job done. As darkness fell, the first tanks started rolling.19

  The exhausted engineers of 1 CID received no respite from their labours. They set off in a truck convoy for the coast that very night, following a tortuous side route mapped out by corps headquarters in order to keep their heavy construction vehicles from damaging the precious wheeled-vehicle route. The engineer’s war diarist described the route as involving “numerous steep grades and sharp curves. The road itself degenerated into a mere goat track. Finally the heavy transporters [bearing bulldozers and other heavy construction equipment] of the field park company had to be turned back and sent along a better road.”20

  On the night of August 16, corps headquarters and the Royal Canadian Engineer Corps troops moved to the area of Jesi. Like all the other convoys rolling over the Apennines, they travelled without using headlights in order to avoid German detection. Hour after hour, the road ahead worsened. At dawn, the road abruptly petered out and the convoy found itself stranded atop a mountain summit. The track was too narrow to turn the vehicles around. With no option but to go onward, the engineers unloaded a couple of bulldozers and proceeded to cut a rugged cross-country trail overland to where it could link into another road.21

  Security during the move was exceptionally tight. Once again, everyone had removed uniform badges and flashes and concealed all identification markers on vehicles. Any communication with Italian civilians was prohibited. The 3rd Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery war diarist noted that, “with the prospect of smashing Hun resistance in Italy in the forthcoming battle ahead of them,” everyone was more than willing to abide by the security measures.”22

  The movement across the Apennines by V British Corps and I Canadian Corps took ten days to complete. Every night, units formed long lines and drove into the gathering gloom. Winding nose to tail, the convoys snaked over the hills at a standard pace of twelve miles per hour. Any vehicle breaking down on the single-lane track was pushed over the edge and abandoned. Each driver could barely see the vehicle ahead, which was illuminated only by sidelights. Sudden stops resulted in bumpers colliding and muffled curses. Sometimes the vehicles ahead speeded up on descents, leaving the following truckers scrambling to catch up, but also fearful of rounding a turn and colliding with the truck ahead. Route markers were few and lit only by shielded lanterns. Wrong turns, such as that taken by corps headquarters, inevitably dead-ended. Every evening, some of the hastily constructed culverts collapsed. On nights cursed by a thunderstorm, mucky clay and sliding gravel rendered the road surface treacherous. Engineering parties frantically repaired washouts and cleared away slides during daylight hours, then spent the nights watching the trucks roll past, causing yet more damage. At dawn, the entire process began anew.23

  Near the end of the Canadian move over the Appenines, Staff Sergeant Thomas A. Loten of 1 CID’s 5th Field Ambulance found himself inching along in a truck that was well short of Jesi when predawn light started washing over the route of passage. The tortuously winding route had kept Loten and his driver on edge throughout the night. Just after sunrise, the convoy entered a series of extremely sharp S-b
ends. The truck in front plunged off the road, but both men in the front CAB managed to jump clear. As Loten’s truck edged past, he could see no trace of their vehicle at the bottom of the steep cliff. A few minutes later, the convoy ground to a brief halt at the pass’s summit. Looking back the way they had come, Loten thought the following convoy had “the appearance of a huge caterpillar, with its stop-and-go movement, inching its way up the steep grade. Looking east, down towards the Adriatic, the sun was just a golden dot with a single ray of light shining straight up into the heavens.”24

  It took three nights for the tanks and Bren carriers to make the move. The British Columbia Dragoons started on August 17. In addition to their normal loads, each Sherman tank had two forty-four-gallon drums of petrol strapped on the back and the lighter Honey tanks carried one drum each. These were to refuel the tanks en route. Before setting out, Major Jack Turnley, commanding the BCD’s tank column, was told that some sections of road had been cut into cliff faces and three tanks had already been lost to landslides off the cliffs.25

  Although the move was supposed to happen entirely under cover of darkness, huge bottlenecks built up on both the tank and wheeled-vehicle routes. Each passing day saw ever more convoys waddling into their predesignated concentration areas after hours of daytime travel. Massive dust clouds rising off the roads were visible for miles. Everyone assumed that the Germans must have noted this and deduced that a major buildup of forces was underway on the Adriatic front. When 5th Canadian Armoured Brigade’s headquarters moved on August 18, it got tied up behind a long column of British tank transporters that were forced to shift back and forth repeatedly in order to get the long trailers around the tight corners. It took the column fifteen hours to travel a mere seventy-five miles.26