BATTLE OF ITALY: Horizontal Gothic

As they had been at El Alamein, Mareth, Enfidaville and Italy’s Gustaf Line, the Germans were entrenched again. Now it was the Gothic Line, a complex of concrete pillboxes behind a maze of mine fields and barbed wire entanglements north of Italy’s Arno River. Manning the positions were twelve divisions of stubborn Huns commanded by able Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Their orders: to hold until the last day of summer.

Facing them along two-thirds of the line was the Eighth Army, now a rainbow aggregation of Britons, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Indians, Poles and Italians. At the western end of the line was the Fifth Army, predominantly American.

As in the past, Kesselring knew a blow was coming. Allied patrols had probed his line unceasingly for six weeks. But he did not know where the main weight would fall. As in the past, the Eighth Army began slowly (as far back as Aug. 26), grinding out small gains across the Metauro River south of Pesaro on the Adriatic.

Left, Right, Left. Still Kesselring could not be sure that this was anything more than a feint to cover an attack in the center or the west. He sat tight. Reports that the Germans were pulling out of Italy proved misleading and premature.

With complete air domination, General Sir Harold Alexander shifted his greatest strength to the eastern end of the line, struck with such force that Kesselring realized this was the main blow. By then it was too late for him to do much about it. The vengeance-seeking Poles battled their way ten miles into Pesaro, at the mouth of the Foglia River. Tough, fanatical Nazis of the ist Parachute Division, who had shown at Cassino that they knew how to fight, showed at Pesaro that they had not forgotten how.

But they lost again. Farther up the Foglia, other Eighth Army units stormed across; the front was consolidated on a 20-mile stretch, and a deadly hole three to four miles deep was punched in the Gothic Line.

To the Po and the Alps. To the west, American Negro troops of the 92nd Division clawed their way up the southeast slopes of the Monti Pisani, overlooking Pisa. On their left, A.J.A.s (Americans of Japanese ancestry) toiled up the south west slopes. The Germans pulled out in a hurry from Pisa, where they had been ensconced for weeks in the northern section while Americans held the southern.

Although the Fifth Army’s western push was no sideshow, its future lay in the deep valleys and high peaks of the Apennines. For the Eighth, the future was brighter; the breakthrough would not be complete until Rimini was passed, but beyond that was no natural defensive feature to help the Germans. Beyond, there was nothing but the plain of the Po, with its great industrial cities whose population could be counted on to give the Allies more help than they had received in any other section of Italy.

Already the Germans were talking about a new Alpine Line, to keep the Eighth Army out of Austria.