World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF ITALY: The Germans Stopped Us

Weary Allied troops camped before Cassino last week, bitter in defeat. Half-starved Gurkhas who had seized Hangman’s Hill, only to be left stranded there deep within German positions, had crawled back under cover of a barrage, lucky to escape.

In Washington, War Secretary Stimson pronounced the epitaph on the latest Allied attack: “The simple fact is the Germans stopped us.”

Hindsight. Not only was the epitaph pronounced but a postmortem was written by the Army and Navy Journal:

“There was the decision to enter Italy by the toe of the boot. This called for an advance along the mountain range, which offered ample opportunityfor German defense, as we unfortunately have learned. In executing the decision there was inadequacy of force and our artillery lacked the heavies required.

“There was the old story of too little and too late at Anzio, with the result that, although the landing was a surprise, which is always possible through naval support, the troops, instead of moving or being able to move to cut the Via Casilina, the sup ply line of the German forces at Cassino began consolidation of the beachhead, where they are besieged.

“Had we invaded southern France, which the Germans at the time were still working to make impregnable, or into the upper Adriatic Sea, where contact could have been made with Tito’s forces in Yugoslavia, critics of the strategy followed insist, a radically different situation would exist. . . .

“It is true the terrain in Russia has offered few obstacles to the progress of the Red Armies compared with that in Italy, but it probably is likewise true that, had Stalin concentrated against one section of his front, there would have been created a situation comparable to that at Cassino. That he avoided by striking where the Germans appeared weakest and using mo bility to lunge elsewhere, once resistance could not be broken.”

Whether or not criticism of Allied strategy will be justified when all the facts are known, there was at least prima facie evidence that Allied tactics had been defective.

Bigger Guns? The need for more heavy artillery — main U.S. reliance in Italy has been on the 105-mm. howitzer (standard field gun of World War II) and on 155s for heavier work — is illustrated by the comment of one veteran battalion commander on the Cassino front : “Theeffectiveness of artillery on the offense in this country has been negligible since the Germans are so obviously well dug in. . . .”

To get at the Germans in stone houses and strong points, U.S. 8-in. and 240-mm. howitzers are now being used because of their greater penetrating and greater blasting power. (The first pictures of 2403 being used in Italy were released this week.) But apparently the big fellows are not available on the Anzio beachhead.

There the German 170-mm. rifle shoots right across to the beach. (Troops on the beachhead call it the “Anzio Express” because they can hear the scream of its shells passing, hear the report of the gun from the enemy lines, hear the explosion on the shore behind them.) Sometimes the troops see the German guns firing, call on their 105s for counterbattery fire, only to see the U.S. bursts fall far short at maxi mum range. Even 155s sneaked to for ward positions at night have not succeeded in reaching the Germans.

More Men? Now the fact seems clear that in the original landing at Anzio too few troops were employed for the depth of penetration necessary to make this flanking move a success.

A month-old story, finally released by the censor last week, suggested how much the Allies tried to do at Anzio with how little. The story, by the Montreal Star’s Sholto Watt, described the exploits of a unique unit of mixed Canadian and U.S. troops, known unfavorably to the Germans as the men “with funny pants and dirty faces.”

“For two weeks,” wrote Watt, “they held a phenomenally long stretch of Anzio beachhead . . . several times more than would normally be allotted to a corresponding number of infantry.”

They held it by aggressive commando raids. “The force’s most outstanding action was a violent diversionary raid on the town of Sessano during a night when the situation was critical in another sector.” So violent was the diversion that it “relieved pressure on the threatened area and made the Germans withdraw their main defense positions a mile or more on a long front”—but the whole job was done by only 100 face-blackened, bazooka-armed U.S.-Canadians.

Looking Forward. The fighting, at least at Cassino, has now reached a stalemate comparable to that on the Western Front in World War I. Last week Allied troops advanced a mile to take Mt. Marrone, a dominating peak—but at a point far in the hills, some 15 miles northeast of Cassino, where the prospects of an effective drive appeared small.

The Germans, perhaps fishing for information, last week reported that Allied strength was being shifted to the Anzio beachhead. The Anzio beachhead would be much harder to exploit now than it would have been last January, but the German suggestion nonetheless made more than passable sense:

Assuming that the Allies are unwilling to devote the resources necessary for a major landing elsewhere in the Mediterranean—and assuming that they insist on attacking with limited forces in Italy—they are foolish to waste lives battering against the well-defended mountains near Cassino if they can use their efforts on the less-difficult although now also well-defended terrain behind Cassino.