World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF ITALY: Operation Mallory Major

Major William Mallory, onetime Yale (’24) footballer, studied the huge map of northern Italy in his headquarters, noted that the wide Po River had remarkably few bridges. All the German supplies for the fighting front, all the raw materials for war industries in the Po Valley, had to funnel through some two dozen rail and road spans. Major Mallory drew his plan, presented it to his commander, Major General John K. Cannon of the Twelfth (Tactical) Air Force.

“Uncle Joe” promptly adopted it. Just as promptly it was dubbed in arsy-versy army lingo, “Operation Mallory Major.” It was a sequel to “Operation Strangle” (TIME, May 8), in which German supply routes to central Italy were torn apart in preparation for the push on Rome.

The Plan. On July 12 Operation Mallory Major began to work. Mitchells and Marauders called at the bridges along some 200 miles of river from the Adriatic to Alessandria, cut them down with pinpoint bombing. The Germans were caught with their flak and fighters down, watched their bridges crumple into the Po.

Next day the bombers returned, found German pontoon bridges mending some of the gaps, smoke pots placed for protection. Wind waved the smoke aside. At the end of 72 hours, 28 bridges (rail and pontoon) were out. Said Uncle Joe, one of the war’s great tactical air-forcemen: “This is an outstanding feat in the history of aerial warfare.”

General Cannon had said something like that of the Operation Strangle. Observers who charged his estimate off to an airman’s optimism later saw it justified. This time Uncle Joe had promised that the Germans in the Gothic Line would be kept cut off from supplies.

The Pattern. The Army, as it clawed through German defenses before Florence, one of Italy’s greatest cities, did its part to expend the last German munitions and men south of the Po. The battle for Florence was expected to follow the pattern of Rome. Like the capital, the mellow, sun-washed city of art had been declared open by the Germans a month ago. Now, a few miles outside it, the Germans were fighting with fierce, expert craft. At week’s end the German resistance stiffened. But the Germans’ battle was a losing one. Within a matter of days they would have to yield before the combined assault of Eighth Army New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans and British.

Already the Allies, from the hills they held, could see the towers of Florence some six miles away. When Jerry pulled out of these defenses he was expected to fall back around the city, leaving only a light rear-guard line. Allied artillery was carefully avoiding Florence, almost as precious to the world as Rome itself.

It was just as carefully, but less patiently, avoiding Pisa, but patience was running out (see ART). Yanks of General Mark Clark’s Fifth Army were already in the southern part of the town divided by the Arno River. Bowing toward them was the famous eight-story tower and clear in Allied glasses were the figures of German spotters using it for observation.

But monuments or delays notwithstanding, Operation Mallory Major had already begun the attack on the Gothic Line—the last important German defense position in Italy along the natural fortifications of the Apennines.