Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Normandy and what has already taken place in the Pacific, caused Nazi Germany and Japan to face powerful opponents. After the failure of Barbarossa, it was not long before Germany faced a front in the east. The Normandy landings provided a front in the west and in the Pacific Japan was repressed by the Americans. For the landings In Normandy, a new front was already built in the south of Italy. After Rommel was defeated in North Africa, the advance from Sicily and the mainland of Italy soon began. The story below is one of the mainline stories and gives additional insight that the Germans were now really attacked from all sides and were put into the defense.
North Africa
The battle in North Africa began in 1940. In September 1940, Italy invaded Egypt from Libya. A British counter-offensive quickly put the Italians on the defensive and captured eastern Libya. In February 1941, the South Africa Corps under Edwin Rommel recaptured the area. The attacks between the British and the Axis powers went up and down. In November 1941 the British were on the move again, but in June 1942 Rommel advanced to Gazala, defeated the British and pushed on to El Alamein. Meanwhile, Bernard Montgomery was appointed army leader and in November 1942 Rommel was decisively defeated. An attempt by the Axis powers to attack from Tunisia failed completely. Meanwhile, Allied troops had landed in Morocco and Algeria. The battle actually consisted of three phases. Phase 1 concerns the war between the British and the Italians. In phase 2, Mussolini enlisted Hitler’s help and Erwin Rommel was appointed leader of the Deutches Africa Corps. Phase 3 is the interference of the Americans, who conquered Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, while Montgomery opened the attack from Egypt. The Germans and Italians were pushed back far into Tunisia, where they were captured. The turning point in battle was the second battle of El Alamein. Montgomery’s airforce was master in the air which was decisive for the battle. After a two-week exhaustion battle, 50 tanks of the 500 remained for the Germans and the Italians, the Allies had 500 left. At the battle of the Kasserine Pass, Rommel tried to get the Americans to their knees. In the first confrontation between the Germans and the Americans in WW2, Rommel inflicted serious losses on the Americans, but the intended encirclement failed. George Patton appeared on the scene and the Americans recovered quickly. On 13 May 1943, the last Germans and Italians surrendered. Loss to men: 250,000 men. The Italian army was no longer able to defend the motherland in the summer of 1943. The defeat of Mussolini would lead right to his fall after the landings in Sicily and the Italian mainland. The legitimate Italian government sided with the Allies.
Sicily
After the surrender of the Italians and the Germans in North Africa, on 9 and 10 July 1943 the Americans and the British landed in Sicily (operation Husky), led by Patton and Montgomery. 150,000 troops, 3000 ships and 4000 aircraft were used for this purpose. 100,000 Germans had since retreated to mainland Italy. The island’s defense was left to 365,000 Italian and 40,000 remaining German troops. In order to mislead the Germans, a dissembling action was first carried out (operation Mincemeat), which the Germans had to make believe that the landing would take place in Sardinia and Greece. Whether this action has had any impact on the invasion of Sicily has never became clear. The British landed on the east side of the island, the Americans on the south side. Due to the strong winds, the airborne landings on June 9 were not a success, the 82nd Airborne division landed far from their target. This was also the case with the British, who used gliders. Only 12 of the 144 aircraft came at the estimated targets. The landings from the sea on July 10 experienced little resistance. The British arrived in Syracuse without much trouble. With the Americans, things were not going so well. Shelling by the fleet off the coast was needed to help the troops. On July 11, there were still problems. Patton decided to send reinforcements through the air, but this action did not exactly go smoothly. Due to poor communication, 37 of the 144 aircraft were lost due to their own fire.
Montgomery persuaded Alexander to adjust the deployment of the armies and let the British play the lead role in the capture of Messina. Patton would then defend the flanks, but would not accrue to the attack plan. Patton was not charmed by this idea, but Alexander stuck to his point of view. Patton is allowed to carry out reconnaissance actions at his discretion. Patton interpreted this assignment rather broadly, with the result that Palermo was taken by the Americans on July 22. Montgomery was pissed, but Patton claimed the communication had been unclear. When the “misunderstanding” was clarified, Patton was already in Palermo. Montgomery was still stuck south of Messina. Patton thought it was a good idea to be the first to reach Messina. On July 23, Patton was ordered to go to Messina. Patton’s attacks caused an exodus of the Germans, who managed to evacuate most of their troops to Italy’s mainland. Patton entered Messina after the departure of the last ships of the Axis powers. Patton had won the race to Messina and Montgomery was not happy about that. However, the British started to appreciate the actions of the Americans.
The result: On the American side 2,237 dead and 6,544 wounded and prisoners of war, British 2,721 dead and 10,122 wounded and prisoners of war, on the side of the Axis powers, German, 20,000 dead and wounded, Italian 4,000 dead and 32,500 wounded and 115,000 prisoners of war. Operation Husky was the largest amphibious operation of World War II and even surpassed the landings in Normandy, later on June 6, 1944. The operation also had a major impact on the Germans’ tactics. They stopped their attack at Kursk in Russia to free up units for Italy.
The advance on the mainland of Italy
On September 3, Montgomery landed in Calabria, on September 9, the Americans, including the British e10th Corps, landed in the Gulf of Salerno. After heavy fighting, the advance of the Allies came to a halt at the Volturno line. When this hurdle was finally taken, the next, after later it would turn out to be almost impregnable obstacle, the Gustav line had to be taken. The German commander-in-chief Kesselring had built a line of defense right through the center of Italy, protected by the rivers Sangro, the Rapido and the Gaigliano. In this line was the town of Monte Cassino, known from the Benedictine monastery on one of the hills. The Gustav Line had to be broken by the Allies to make the advance to Rome possible. The protagonists in this drama are commander-in-chief Kesselring, Generaloberst Von Vietinghoff, General der Gebirgs Truppen Feuerstein, of the Americans the generals Alexander and Clark, of the British general Leese. The aim of the attack (phase 1) was to keep the Germans away from Anzio as much as possible, where a landing would take place within a few days and force a breakthrough to advance to Rome as soon as possible. On 17 January, the first attacks were set up by the British 10th Corps, the French Corps and the American 2 e Corps. It was now winter in Italy and it was cold and very wet which would cause the Allies the necessary problems. Despite many attempts, the attacks failed and hardly any ground gain was made due to fierce opposition from the strategically well-located German troops. They decided to withdraw.
The landing at Anzio
The Allied army leadership thought a landing behind the Gustav Line could bring a solution. The Germans would then have to make the decision to continue to defend the Gustav Line at full strength, or to take troops away from the Gustav Line to launch a counter-attack on the bridgehead at Anzio. It would become a win-win situation for the Allies anyway. But as so often in this war, the German generals proved strategically much better than those of the Allies. Kesselring and Von Vietinghoff pulled reinforcements from northern Italy, from the southern French coast and even from the Balkans. General Lucas, the person responsible for landing at Anzio, was not exactly decisive. He waited far too long to break out giving the Germans time to launch a counterattack. Thanks to the support of the fleet that was still close to the coast, the bridgehead could be retained. The front remained static until May 23 and thus had no influence on the battle for the Gustav line. Churchill said, “I was hoping we would have sent a wildcat to the beach, but we are now sitting with a washed ashore whale”. Lucas’s actions were the worst of both worlds, exposing his soldiers to the enemy and not putting a threat on the enemy. Lucas was relieved of his command on February 15 and was replaced by Lician Truscott.
The Gustav Line
On February 15, the Allies began a bombing using bombers (phase 2). The consequences for the area and the monastery were disastrous. At the request of the Indian commander (part of the British armed forces) the monastery was also bombed. Everything was almost leveled to the ground. This turned out to be a serious strategic blunder because the Germans could now make good use of the ruins of the monastery. They had now an additional strong defensive line. Moreover, it turned out that in the monastery there were no Germans but only refugees who had fled to the monastery for the violence. The number of civilian deaths was therefore considerable. During the bombing, a number of bombs also fell into their own ranks, causing many casualties.
Several waves of attack failed by fierce German opposition and on February 19 they decided to cancel the attack further, leaving it quiet for a month. Until another bombardment began on March 15 (Phase 3). The advancing infantry had severe problems, the tanks suffered a lot from the now many bomb craters and were again pinned down. House-to-house fights took several days and the advance again was stopped. Four days after the start of the fighting, the Allies made another attack and the battle went up and down. A comparison with the trench war in the First World War can easily be made here. A German soldier writes: “What we are experiencing here is outrageous. Even in Russia, I’ve never seen this. Not a moment of peace, just the endless roar of cannons and mortars. There is nothing but fear, death and destruction”. Another German soldier: “On the path to the headquarters, less than 200 meters away, there are 20 dead comrades and it is not difficult to guess why. The English snipers are good. They aim for the head and shoot. The mortar shells whistle us around the ears day and night. Sometimes a few seconds long, it’s quiet. And then I dream of home”. General Alexander: “The fighting spirit of the German paratroopers is amazing when you consider that they have been the target of the entire air force and have been bombarded with 800 cannons, the greatest concentration of firepower ever. I don’t think there are other troops who can go through that and then still fight so fortwine”. The battle was again halted at the expense of heavy losses on both sides.
The Allies were now able to decipher the Enigma codes and had found that the Germans operated heavily below their strength. Knowing this and with in mind the planned landing in Normandy on 6 June 1944, large parts of the 8th British army were added to the army at the Gustav Line. The goal was to keep as many German troops as possible busy who could not be used in Normandy. The 2nd Polish Corps was also added to the force. For the implementation of phase 4, an additional amount of material was supplied and on 11 May 1944 the Allies reopened fire. Despite fierce opposition, the Allies finally managed to defeat the Germans. The German lines had been breached or passed and that marked the end of the Gustav line. Kesselring ordered the remaining troops at Monte Cassino, the remains of the monastery and the surrounding hills to leave and head north. On 18 May, the Poles finally reached the monastery after a 5-month siege and raised the flag. Through another strategic blunder from the Allies, thousands of the German elite units were able to escape north and continue the battle there. By the timely closure of main road 6 (Strada Statala 6) by the Allies, this escape could have been prevented. But they were in a hurry to arrive in Rome as soon as possible.
After the breakthrough of the Gustav Line, a number of obstacles to be taken followed before Rome could be reached. The Hitler/Senger line, the Caesar line and the Gutter line were breached within days. Rome fell on June 4, 1944. The result of the battles around Monte Cassino, in terms of casualties, differs quite a bit according to various sources. The estimate of about 75,000 deaths is most likely. The flat throwing of the famous monastery became a big point of contention after the war. Had the bombardment of this sacred building really been necessary now, especially since the Germans claimed never to have entrenched themselves in the monastery.
The units that were part of the Allies were quite diverse. Moroccans and Algerians, part of the French army, American Japanese from Hawaii, troops from New Zealand and India (gurkhas), part of the British army and the Poles. The North Africans have had the best results in the Italian mountains. They were not very impressed by their allies and discovered that the Germans could have little respect for the American way of fighting.
The Abbey of Monte Cassino
The abbey was founded in 529. In 577 the abbey was destroyed, after the reconstruction in 883 again destroyed. The abbey was rebuilt. In the 14th century, the abbey was destroyed again, now by an earthquake. One could start again. Hundreds of years later, the abbey was bombed by the Allies. Reason: the commander of the gurkhas distrusted the story of the Germans that they had not entrenched themselves in the abbey and made a request to flatten the abbey for safety. Of the abbey, nothing was left but a smoking mess. In the period 1948 to 1956, the abbey was completely and precisely rebuilt in the style of before the war. Money played no role and the final result is mind-bogglingly beautiful.
The landing in the South of France
The Allied landing in the South of France took place on 15 August 1944, more than 2 months after landing in Normandy and was named Operation Dragoon. The aim was to accelerate the Allied advance from Normandy and reduce the pressure on the other fronts. De Gaulle, in particular, made a strong commitment to this plan and threatened to withdraw if the liberation of southern France was not accelerated by a direct invasion. The Americans agreed, the British preferred to strengthen the existing fronts. After a lot of fuss, Churchill finally agreed to the plans. Due to the fall of Rome in early June and the success of the advance from Normandy (Operation Cobra), the British agreed for tactical reasons.
Just like prior to D-Day, the code “Gabi dort dans les herbes” and the sequel “Nancy a un torticollis”, meant that the invasion would take place within 24 hours. The French resistance, together with the Allies, had planned a number of actions and they were carried out. However, the resistance had also killed a German officer and the Germans did not let that sit on their own. On June 9, 99 people were hanged as a retribution, but Adolf Diekmann did not think that was enough (see the message The Murder Factories – Adolf Diekmann). All the civilians present in Oradour-sur-Glane were murdered on June 10 and the village was set on fire and destroyed.
The landing areas consisted of Alpha Beach (US 3 e infantry division, plus a French armoured division), Delta Beach (US 45 e infantry division), and Camel Beach (US 36 e infantry division). The divisions were supported by a large group of French commandos who landed on both flanks. From the air landed the 1st Airborne Task Force near Le Muy – Le Luc. The operation was also supported by heavy guns from the sea and from the air from 7 small aircraft carriers. Due to the slight opposition of the Germans and the great Allied force majeure to troops and equipment, more than 94,000 troops and 11,000 vehicles were landed on the first day. The Germans had a front again.
At the rapid advance from the coast, the German opposition became a little more fierce, but turned out to be not a problem. Many German troops were transferred to northern France, so the Germans had to deal with a shortage of troops. Actually, the Germans were only busy with retreat. The first contact between the Allied troops from northern France and the troops from the south of France took place at Dijon in mid-September 1944. The rapid advance occasionally led to a fuel shortage. But the conquest of the port of Marseille brought a solution. Despite the damaged port installations, a new supply line was created that ensured 30% of all supplies.
Sources:
Military.net
Historianet.nl
Initalia.nl
Monte Cassino – Dominick Graham
Some Wikipedia articles