Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [162]
By the time 5th Army reached the Gustav Line it was already worn down from the heavy fighting in the approaches. The Germans had, as Kesselring promised Hitler, fought for every yard. On mountains where supplies had to be carried by mule, and finally on the backs of infantry, the German and Allied troops had savaged each other in swirling cloud and bitter cold. At Monte Camino, Monte Maggiore, Mignano and San Pietro Infine, in company- and battalion-size actions, the British and Americans pushed forward. It was Christmas before they broke the Winter Line, and mid-January before they reached the Gustav Line. Here they stopped; this was Kesselring’s main position south of Rome, and he was going to hold it to the bitter end.
The Allies battered against the Gustav Line for nearly five months. In the main line of resistance, they faced, as usual, a German defense with both lines securely anchored, the western on the sea and the eastern in impassable mountains. Alexander was left no apparent alternative but to drive straight through.
There was another possibility, however. Earlier, in November, the Allies had considered making an amphibious assault behind the German lines. This was to have been coupled with 8th Army’s drive to and through Pescara. Since Montgomery did not get that far, the idea was shelved. Now it was brought out again, and as it evolved, it became part of a complex plan.
In mid-January the British corps of 5th Army would attack along the seacoast, at the end of the Gustav Line. That would dislocate the Germans; then, concurrently, the Americans would drive across the Rapido River and through Cassino, and a third Anglo-American force would land up the coast at the little port of Anzio. German reserves would not be able to counter all of these moves, and the Gustav Line would have to break.
Unfortunately, the plan did not go as it was supposed to. It was hastily prepared, because of the inevitable demands for shipping. The preparations for the Normandy invasion were well advanced by now, and as a secondary effort, the Allies were planning a landing in southern France. The Anzio operation had to be squeezed in, and shipping scraped up here and there to support it. As an example of the interlocking nature of the Allied global effort, Anzio caused the downgrading of a scheduled amphibious operation in the Bay of Bengal, and there were virtually cabinet-level meetings to decide on the disposition of as few as half a dozen landing ships, until Churchill was forced to grumble, “Sometimes I think the whole war depends on some damned thing called an LST.” He was right; the Landing Ship Tank, or “Large Slow Target” in sailors’ slang, had become one of the crucial items of the war inventory.
On January 17 the British attacked across the lower Garigliano, gained a foothold, and succeeded in drawing in the local German reserves from the Gustav Line. To its right the U. S. IInd Corps put in what was supposed to be the main attack. Hurriedly, not knowing exactly what they were doing or why, the 36th Texas National Guard Division tried to cross the Rapido just below Cassino. Their attack broke down with heavy losses, and they made hardly a dent in the Gustav Line. The Texans were so upset that they demanded—and subsequently got—a Congressional investigation into what they regarded as the wanton sacrifice of their division; yet they made so little impact that the Germans in their war diaries noted nothing more than increased patrol activities.
The haste and muddle at Cassino was all undertaken so that the Anzio operation could be carried out within the necessary time constraints of the larger war. The 36th Division’s attack was to draw in reserves so the landing at Anzio could proceed unopposed, and there, on January 22, 50,000 British and American troops of the U. S. VIth Corps came charging ashore against virtually no Germans at all. Having done that, and succeeded in totally surprising the German