Forgotten Battles of World War 2 - Operation Avalanche
Forgotten Battles of World War 2
Section 1: The Italian Campaign
Part 2: Operation Avalanche
"The sea is like a mill pond. I hope we have as calm and peaceful a day tomorrow for our work in Salerno Bay..." ~ Major-General Fred Walker, 36th Infantry Division
Continuing from the previous part of this series, the Allies had just finished the first stage of their offensive in Italy by securing the island of Sicily; now they had a springboard for the inevitable invasion of the mainland. Unfortunately for them however, the odds were heavily stacked against them. Firstly, they had enabled the German forces to escape from the island in their clumsy and unimaginative strike against Sicily, and secondly the terrain facing them consisted nearly entirely of hills, rivers and mountains which were a defender's paradise; the last time Italy had been invaded from the south was over 2,000 years ago in 280BC when Pyrrhus of Epirus defeated a series of Roman armies arrayed against him in a number of extremely costly battles which eventually forced him to concede defeat in the strategic sense with his army battered and broken. In fact, this route was so undesirable that even Hannibal had decided to cross the Alps and invade from the north than from the south!
The invasion of Italy however, would be a three-pronged assault. Around Salerno, the 36th 'Texas' Infantry Division along with the British 46th 'Oak Tree' and 56th 'Black Cat' Infantry divisions along with American Rangers and British Commandos would land in said sector in the early hours of September 9, 1943 (4:30AM to be exact) with the aid of darkness. This would be Operation Avalanche. North of Reggio di Calabria however, Operation Baytown was taking place. The aim of this operation would be for Eighth Army to advance up the toe of Italy and link up with the Allied forces around the Bay of Salerno. Around Taranto, another offensive, Operation Slapstick would be launched. 1st Parachute Division would be landed at Taranto and after securing key points would make its way westwards.
"When we arrived we were neck deep in water, it was really cold. A lad who'd been behind me on the landing craft - I never knew his name - when we got on to the shore at last, said to me, 'When the sun comes up this will be sunny Italy', and he immediately trod on a land mine; next thing he's dead." - Jeffrey Smith, British 46th Infantry Division
Things would not be going to plan however. While the landings on the whole went without a hitch, when the Allied forces attempted to push inland, things went horribly wrong. The Germans reacted quickly. The Herman Goring Panzer Division along with 15. Panzer Grenadier Division rapidly advanced to face the British troops to the west of the bridgehead while 26. Panzer-Division and 29. Panzer Grenadier Division deployed rapidly to face the 36th Infantry Division to the east of the bridgehead (soon reinforced by the US 45th ID). Thanks to the success of this quick reaction, von Vietinghoff was able to launch an offensive on September 12 in between the American and British landing forces and push them closer and closer to the beaches. Thanks to the 504th Parachute Regiment having been dropped prior to this however, though the Germans came excruciatingly close to destroying the US troops (Clark nearly orders a withdrawal back to the ships), they're able to put up fierce resistance against the armoured assault thanks to fire support from both their landed artillery and off-shore support. For four days this battle raged on, and despite the sheer chaos in the Allied lines, morale is successfully restored and the line maintained.
The two other operations as part of this offensive however would be pointless. Operation Baytown failed to draw German troops away from the Salerno bridgehead which meant that British troops had to trudge across mile after mile which thanks to German demolition work would actually be hampered after the engineers ran out of bridging materials. Nonetheless, by September 16, they had made contact with the 36th Infantry Division and the Axis forces involved in offensive actions around the bridgehead were required to disengage, withdrawing three days later. Operation Slapstick despite its goals of securing the ports of Taranto and Bari however would end up as another trudge through hills and mountains to reach the beachhead as well just like Baytown.
Despite the Germans having been defeated in this offensive, in a sense they were actually very successful. At one point they were literally on top of the Allied division's positions and were four miles away from the beaches. They were so close that you would have been able to actually see the beach, and were nearly able to get the US troops to withdraw. Close fire support and air support saved the Allies however. This would be a common trend throughout the latter years of the war with German success being stymied by these two factors which had helped them so much during their Blitzkrieg offensive of 1939-1942. It was reassuring that they had been able to inflict ~9,000 casualties on the bridgehead however, with themselves losing less than half that number and as well as this to have been able to take 4,000 prisoners so as compared to the 630 the Allies were able to take.
In the aftermath of this, the combined Allied force would advance further up the Peninsula with the conquest of Foggia on September 27 and Naples on October 1, 1943. Unfortunately for them, their troubles had still not come to an end. With more and more German troops being deployed on the Italian front, they would once more be given a mauling in 1944 and beaten to a standstill at the Gustav Line which was almost impenetrable thanks to the nature of the terrain it was created in. In muddy conditions troops would have to make their way over hills, climb up steep cliffs exceeding 1,000ft, and where the terrain was more open there would either be a river or a carefully prepared defensive position where there were clear German fields of fire or blockhouses consisting of tanks, guns and soldiers to cause havoc on the Allied advance.
To be continued ...
Re: Forgotten Battles of World War 2 - Operation Avalanche
Nice work. I enjoyed both pieces. They were both informative and engaging while being concise and easy to follow for the reader with only a passive interest in the subject.
I do have one nitpick with the title. While Normandy certainly gets the majority of attention in pop history due to the Allies' marginally better performance and outcomes, neither the Sicilian Campaign nor Operation Avalanche have been particularly forgotten. For example, Husky and the race to Messina were forever memorialized in the movie "Patton".
I would suggest looking at engagements on a smaller scale to really find battles that have escaped the public consciousness, such as the Battle of Overloon or - to keep it in Italy - the Battle of Ortona.
Re: Forgotten Battles of World War 2 - Operation Avalanche
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Nice work. I enjoyed both pieces. They were both informative and engaging while being concise and easy to follow for the reader with only a passive interest in the subject.
Thanks ~:)
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I do have one nitpick with the title. While Normandy certainly gets the majority of attention in pop history due to the Allies' marginally better performance and outcomes, neither the Sicilian Campaign nor Operation Avalanche have been particularly forgotten. For example, Husky and the race to Messina were forever memorialized in the movie "Patton".
Maybe not entirely forgotten, but it's not something very mainstream. Even during the war the soldiers in Italy felt forgotten about which after June 6, 1944 was true as the media started to focus on the Western Front rather than Southern Europe. Hardly remembered back then, and hardly remembered now I felt I needed to do something about that, no matter how small an influence I may have in writing these articles.
Quote:
I would suggest looking at engagements on a smaller scale to really find battles that have escaped the public consciousness, such as the
Battle of Overloon or - to keep it in Italy - the
Battle of Ortona.
Once i've covered one more battle in Italy i'll be moving on to another theatre entirely ~;)
Re: Forgotten Battles of World War 2 - Operation Avalanche
Re: Forgotten Battles of World War 2 - Operation Avalanche
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lysimachus
Once i've covered one more battle in Italy i'll be moving on to another theatre entirely ~;)
The Eastern Front maybe? ... Talk about forgotten battles!
Consider me subscribed.
Re: Forgotten Battles of World War 2 - Operation Avalanche
Nice writeup, and kudos for the idea!
My opinion of the whole Italian campaign can be summed up as follows, however......
A waste of time and resources, and Clark was a complete idiot who should have been cashiered for incompetence.
