Operation Avalanche

::General der Panzertruppen Hermann Balck :::*Deployed along coast from north to south of Naples:* ::* [15th Panzergrenadier Division](15th-panzergrenadier-division-wehrmacht) (Generalleutnant Eberhard Rodt) ::* Panzer Division *Hermann Göring* (Generalmajor Wilhelm Schmalz) ::* [16th Panzer Division](16th-panzer-division-wehrmacht) (Generalleutnant Rudolf Sieckenius) ::LXXVI Panzer Corps ::General der Panzertruppen Traugott Herr :::*Deployed in Calabria and Apulia:* ::* [26th Panzer Division](26th-panzer-division-wehrmacht) (Generalleutnant Smilo Freiherr von Lüttwitz) ::* [3rd Panzergrenadier Division](3rd-infantry-division-wehrmacht) (Generalleutnant Fritz-Hubert Gräser) ::* [29th Panzergrenadier Division](29th-infantry-division-wehrmacht) (Generalleutnant Walter Fries) ## Landings ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Mark_w_clark_1943.jpg" caption="USS ''Ancon'']] during the landings at Salerno, Italy, 12 September 1943."] :: At Salerno the decision had been taken to assault without previous naval or aerial bombardment, in order to secure surprise. Tactical surprise was not achieved, as the naval commanders had predicted. As the first wave approached the shore at Paestum a loudspeaker from the landing area proclaimed in English, "Come on in and give up. We have you covered." The troops attacked nonetheless. The Germans had established artillery and machine-gun posts and scattered tanks through the landing zones which made progress difficult, but the beach areas were successfully taken. Around 07:00 a concerted counterattack was made by the 16th Panzer division. It caused heavy casualties, but was beaten off with naval gunfire support. Both the British and the Americans made slow progress, and still had a 10-mile gap between them at the end of day one. They linked up by the end of day two and occupied 35–45 miles of coast line to a depth of six or seven miles. General Montgomery had predicted *Baytown* would be a waste of effort because it assumed the Germans would give battle in Calabria; if they failed to do so, the diversion would not work. He was proved correct. After Baytown, the Eighth Army marched 300 mi north to the Salerno area against no opposition other than engineer obstacles. During September 12–14 the Germans organized a concerted counterattack with six divisions of motorised troops, hoping to throw the Salerno beachhead into the sea before it could link with the British 8th Army. Heavy casualties were inflicted, as the Allied troops were too thinly spread to be able to resist concentrated attacks. The outermost troops were therefore withdrawn in order to reduce the perimeter. The new perimeter was held with the assistance of 4,000 paratroopers from the 82nd and [509th PIB](509th-parachute-infantry-battalion) who air dropped near the hot spots, from strong naval gunfire support, and from well-served Fifth Army artillery. The German attacks reached almost to the beaches but ultimately failed. The heavy gunfire of Allied battleships practically immobilised counterattacking German units with their sheer firepower, forcing the Germans to halt their counteroffensive and regroup. General Clark was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest US award for valor in combat, for his front-line leadership during this crisis. He was frequently seen in the most forward positions encouraging the troops. However, in the estimate of historian Carlo D'Este, both Clark and Harold Alexander bore responsibility for the Salerno landings being a near-disaster. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/USS_Savannah_(CL-42)_is_hit_by_a_German_guided_bomb,_off_Salerno,_11_September_1943.jpg" caption="url-status=live }}</ref>"] :: The Salerno battle was also the site of a mutiny by about 600 men of the British 10th Corps, who on September 16 refused assignment to new units as replacements. They had previously understood that they would be returning to their own units from which they had been separated during the fighting in the North African Campaign, mainly because they had been wounded. Eventually the Corps commander, McCreery, persuaded most of the men to follow their orders. The NCOs who led the mutiny were sentenced to death, but were eventually allowed to rejoin units and the sentence was not carried out. ### German strategy changes ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/ItalyDefenseLinesSouthofRome1943_4.jpg" caption="German prepared defensive lines south of Rome]]."] :: The German 10th Army had come very close to overwhelming the Salerno beachhead. The Allies had been fortunate that at this time Adolf Hitler had sided with the view of his Army Group commander in Northern Italy, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, and decided that defending Italy south of Rome was not a strategic priority. As a result, the Army Group Commander in southern Italy, Field Marshall Albert Kesselring had been forbidden to call upon reserves from the northern Army Group. The subsequent success of the German 10th Army's defensive campaign in inflicting very heavy casualties on both U.S. 5th and British 8th Armies and Kesselring's strategic arguments that the Allies should be kept as far away from Germany as possible led Hitler to change his mind in October at which point he withdrew Rommel to oversee the build-up of defenses in northern France and gave Kesselring command of the whole of Italy with a remit to keep Rome in German hands for the longest time possible. ## Aftermath ### Casualties General Clark in his book *Calculated Risk* reports that the X Corps suffered 531 killed in action, 1,915 wounded and 1,561 missing, while the VI Corps had 225 killed, 853 wounded and 589 missing. Clark also stated that most of the missing from both corps subsequently returned to the front lines. After a week long battle, the combined Allied losses were heavy, with 2,349 killed, 7,366 wounded and 4,100 missing. German losses numbered 840 killed, 2,002 wounded and 603 missing.Most of these losses were inflicted by Allied naval support fire and field guns. ### Further Allied advances ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Salerno_fight_6.gif" caption="US [[Jeep]] and an M10 Tank Destroyer destroyed in Salerno."] :: With the Salerno beachhead secure, the 5th Army could begin to attack northwest towards Naples. The 8th Army had been making quick progress from the "toe" in the face of German engineer delaying actions and linked with the 1st Airborne Division on the Adriatic coast. It united the left of its front with the 5th Army's right on 16 September, and advancing up the Adriatic coast captured the airfields near Foggia on 27 September. Foggia was a major Allied objective because the large airfield complex there would give the Allied air forces the ability to strike new targets in France, Germany and the Balkans. The 5th Army captured Naples on 1 October, and reached the line of the Volturno River on October 6. This provided a natural barrier, securing Naples, the Campanian Plain and the vital airfields on it from counterattack. Meanwhile, on the Adriatic coast, the British 8th Army had advanced to a line from Campobasso to Larino and Termoli on the Biferno river. Thus, by early October, the whole of southern Italy was in Allied hands, and the Allied armies now stood facing the Volturno Line, the first of a series of prepared defensive lines running across Italy from which the Germans chose to fight delaying actions, giving ground slowly and buying time to complete their preparation of the Winter Line, their strongest defensive line south of Rome. The next stage of the Italian Campaign became for the Allied armies a grinding and attritional slog against skillful, determined and well prepared defenses in terrain and weather conditions which favoured defense and hampered the Allied advantages in mechanised equipment and air superiority. It took until mid-January 1944 to fight through the Volturno, Barbara and Bernhardt lines to reach the **Gustav Line**, the backbone of the Winter Line defenses, setting the scene for the four Battles of Monte Cassino which took place between January and May 1944. ## Notes ## References ## Bibliography ### Print - {{cite book - {{cite book - - {{cite book | author-link = Angus Konstam - {{cite book | author-link = Angus Konstam - {{cite book - - {{cite book | editor-last = Montemaggi | editor-first = Amedeo - {{cite book ·Salerno Remembered by Geoffrey Curtis. Published by The Queen's Royal Surrey Regimental Association 1988 ISBN 0 7110 1901 0 ## Filmography - A Walk in the Sun (1945 film), directed by Lewis Milestone, US ## References 1. {{harvnb. Morris. 1993 2. Martin Blumenson, ''United States Army in World War 2, Mediterranean Theater of Operations, Salerno to Cassino'' (1969). Washington DC, Government Printing Office, p. 67. 3. ["Boardman {{!}} Operations & Codenames of WWII"](https://codenames.info/operation/boardman/#:~:text='Boardman'%20was%20the%20Allied%20deception,(July/September%201943).). 4. Souter, Gerry. (2019-05-20). ["The Ghost Army: Conning the Third Reich"](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Ghost_Army/9LWZDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=operation+boardman&pg=PT49&printsec=frontcover). *Arcturus Publishing*. 5. Morison 1954, pp. 391–394 6. Konstam 2013, p. 25 7. Benbow, Tim. (22 June 2022). ["Battleships, D-Day, and naval strategy"](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09683445211022765). *[[War in History]]*. 8. (4 June 2015). ["Savannah (CL-42) iv"](https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/savannah-iv.html). *Naval History and Heritage Command*. 9. {{harvnb. Konstam. 2007 10. Bloomberg, Arnold. (24 December 2022). ["Crushing counterattack at Salerno"](https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2019/01/09/crushing-counterattack-at-salerno/). *Warfare History Net*. ::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Avalanche) and is available under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the [article history page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Avalanche?action=history). ::