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By John T. Correll ✪ the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943, the Italians arrested dictator Benito Mus- solini and removed him from offi ce. Field Marshal Pietro Badoglio, former head of the armed forces, was Italy had dropped out of the war, but appointed by King Victor Emmanuel III to head the government and began secret the Germans were still there. negotiations for an armistice. Italy surrendered unconditionally on Sept. 8. Two days later, Germany—up to then Italy’s partner in the Axis pact—occupied Rome. Badoglio and the king fl ed south to the Allied lines. The Germans rescued Mussolini, who had been confi ned in a remote German Federal Archives photo mountain lodge, Sept.10 and installed 96 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 2016 USAF photo him as the figurehead of a puppet re- which figured to be the first Axis capi- the Balkans and, as Churchill put it, the gime in German-held northern Italy. tal to fall. “No objective can compete “soft underbelly” of Europe. Meanwhile, the invasion proceeded. with the capture of Rome,” said British The Americans, who now provided The British Eighth Army crossed the Prime Minister Winston Churchill. an increasingly larger share of the Strait of Messina from Sicily to land On the eve of the Salerno landing, the forces for the war, refused to put off at Reggio Calibria and Taranto in the Allies considered dropping paratroopers the cross-Channel strategy any longer. southern end of the Italian boot. The from the US 82nd Airborne near Rome A target date of May 1944 was set for main effort, however, was by the US to link up with Italian forces and seize the invasion of France, which had been Fifth Army, which went ashore on the city. The idea was scrubbed when designated Operation Overlord. The Ital- Sept. 9 at Salerno, some 145 miles closer examination revealed that the ian campaign continued at Churchill’s south of Rome. Germans had two panzer divisions in insistence, but with a reduction in On Oct. 13, Italy declared war on the vicinity and that Italian participation priority and resources. Germany, after which the Germans was uncertain. Italy was a tougher nut to crack than treated Italy as an occupied country. The Italian campaign itself was a mat- anticipated. The Allies had expected The great symbolic prize was Rome, ter of considerable dispute. In 1942, the the Germans to fall back steadily to US had reluctantly accepted Churchill’s the north but the Germans dug in and Left: German paratroopers fire a mor- “Southern Strategy,” committing forces made their stand in the rugged terrain tar at Allied troops. Above: B-25s on the way to bomb German troops near to North Africa and the Mediterranean between Naples and Rome. Monte Cassino in March 1944 pass Mount and postponing the invasion of Europe Vesuvius belching huge clouds of ash across the English Channel. In the ALLIES IN TRANSITION and smoke. Many USAAF aircraft were damaged by the hot ash and turbulent summer of 1943, the British wanted to The campaign for the Italian main- air near the eruption. proceed northward through Italy into land began with the same US and AIR FORCE Magazine / September 2016 97 British leaders who had conducted commanded the US Fifth Army, which producing six panel cartoons a week for the war in North Africa and Sicily, was created for operations in Italy. Fifth the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. but within a few months most of them Army consisted of two American corps were gone, reassigned to England for and one British corps. THE GUSTAV LINE the buildup to Overlord. The Allied lineup in Italy included Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, com- US Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Canadians, Indians, New Zealanders, manding the German forces in northern commander in chief in the Mediter- Poles, South Africans, Italians, and Free Italy, did not believe the peninsula could ranean theater, went to command the French, but overall, it was a smaller be held after the Italian surrender. To Overlord invasion forces gathering in force than before. Seven divisions—four better defend the approaches to the Ger- Britain. Along with him went his senior US, three British—and several bomber man homeland, he proposed a fi ghting air commander, Air Chief Marshal Ar- groups were transferred to Britain to withdrawal to the Gothic Line above thur Tedder, and the two top American prepare for Overlord. Florence. airmen, Lt. Gen. Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz The air campaign in Italy would However, the commander in the south, and Maj. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. Gen. rely primarily on Mediterranean Allied Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, argued Bernard L. Montgomery, who had led Tactical Air Force, which had medium for staging the defense as far away from the British Eighth Army, was not far bombers as well as fi ghters. The Allied Germany as possible. Fuhrer Adolf Hitler behind. Strategic Air Force component devoted agreed, and Rommel was transferred to Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker was called in to its primary attention to western Europe France. Kesselring was given command command the Mediterranean air forces although the heavy bombers were usually of a new organization, Army Group C, but the Italian front took on more of a available for longer-range strikes in Italy. to which all of the German forces in British complexion, with the Americans Among the American GIs who landed Italy were assigned. accounting for fewer than a third of the was Bill Mauldin, a rifl eman with the Kesselring’s military weakness was combat forces in the theater. 180th Infantry Division. Mauldin drew airpower. In September 1943, the Luft- British Gen. Henry Maitland “Jum- cartoons for the 45th Division News, waffe had only 625 combat airplanes bo” Wilson replaced Eisenhower as using whatever scrap paper he could left in the entire Mediterranean theater, theater commander with British Gen. fi nd. His characters, Willie and Joe, vastly outnumbered by the Allied air Harold Alexander as the senior ground were enormously popular and before forces, even after the drawdown for commander. Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark long, Mauldin had his own jeep and was Overlord. Photo from World War II Signal Corps Photograph Collection Tanks are unloaded at Anzio harbor, to join US Fifth Army forces on the beach- head. The end run around the Gustav Line completely surprised the Germans, and the landing was accomplished virtually unopposed. The Allies failed to break out, however, and were soon beseiged. 98 AIR FORCE Magazine / September 2016 Copyright by Bill Mauldin 1944, courtesy of Bill Mauldin Estate LLC The Germans made effective Cartoonist Bill Mauldin’s GI char- use of geography, especially the acters Willie and Joe on the ground in Italy. Mauldin provided Apennine Mountains, a chain six panel cartoons a week for that ran down the spine of Italy. Stars and Stripes. They were enor- Easy movement was possible only mously popular with the troops. along the narrow coastal plains. from Salerno. Together they Above Salerno, Kesselring pulled would drive toward Rome. The together several fortifi ed echelons, Salerno beachhead was secured known collectively as the Winter in nine days of hard fighting and Line, stretching from coast to the Allies took Naples Oct. 1. coast across Italy at the most nar- Progress beyond that was slow row point. The most formidable and difficult. Repeated attempts of these interlocking defenses failed to break the Gustav Line. was the Gustav Line, which ran By the end of September, the through the craggy stronghold of Allies were in fi rm control of Monte Cassino. southern Italy but were unable High atop Monte Cassino was to advance further. The main an ancient monastery where the battle lines remained static for Benedictine order was founded the rest of 1943. in the sixth century. The Ger- mans maintained—truthfully, as ANZIO it turned out—that they had not If the Allies could not break occupied the monastery itself, though the Gustav Line, perhaps but the slopes of the mountain they could go around it with an were strewn with mines and the heights The Allied plan was for the British “amphibious end run” to land at Anzio, all around bristled with artillery pre- Eighth Army to push north and link behind the German right fl ank and about sighted on the approaches below. up with the US Fifth Army forces 35 miles south of Rome. This would put pressure on Kesselring to pull back and defend his supply lines and the ap- proaches to Rome. The greatest advocate of the Anzio offensive—dubbed Operation Shingle— Photo by Radomil Binek by Photo was Churchill, whose enthusiasm pre- vailed over military concerns about the risk. The landing was made Jan. 22 by the Fifth Army’s VI Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, with a British division assigned to satisfy Churchill’s requirement for British participation. The Germans were completely sur- prised and the Allies went ashore at German Federal Archives photo Here: The ancient abbey at Monte Cassino was destroyed Feb. 15, 1944, but the Germans weren’t there. They had instead dug in on the grounds outside the walls. Above: View of the rebuilt abbey in 2004. AIR FORCE Magazine / September 2016 99 Anzio essentially unopposed. How- ever, Lucas wasted the advantage, dug into a defensive position, and advanced only a few miles inland. He made no serious effort to go further for nine days, and by then it was too late. Kesselring had Anzio surrounded with eight divisions. Two large railway guns—dubbed “Anzio Annie” and “Anzio Express”— firing from caves in the hills, pounded the beachhead day and night.

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