off-balance they certainly were. In many ways it was a miracle the Germans were able to defend so much of the line at all. Communication between units was terrible. Not only had AOK 10’s HQ been bombed out, Allied bombers had also hit the headquarters of the 1st Fallschirmjäger, 44th Infantry, and 15th Panzer Grenadier Divisions and in so doing, seriously interrupted their ability to communicate with one another. And although AOK 10 eventually managed to set up a new HQ with 14th Panzer Corps, it still had not established an advanced headquarters close to the front.
All this meant that information from the front was patchy to say the least. As Kesselring was forced to admit, they were floundering in the dark, unable properly to evaluate the scale of the Allied attack and lacking the kind of ‘data on which to make a far-reaching decision’ on how best to respond.51
Inevitably, the absence of too many senior commanders was hardly helping. Neither General Feuerstein, the commander of the 51st Mountain Corps, nor General Hartmann, von Senger’s stand-in at 14th Panzer Corps, had much experience of command in a major battle. Nor were they especially familiar with the terrain. To make matters worse, Kesselring had, for once, made some crucial tactical errors. The lack of sound intelligence caused him problems on two scores. First, he had an unclear picture of the troops opposing him. For example, only one French division had been correctly identified and he had no idea the massed French Expeditionary Corps was lined up below the Aurunci Mountains, a mistaken appreciation that would cost him dear. Second, he had been forced to cater for every eventuality, leaving a number of troops north of Rome in case of a seaborne landing, as well as around the Anzio bridgehead. Although his build-up of troops and ammunition had gone better than the Allies would have liked, he was still under-strength in almost all his units, while the fighting performance of his divisions varied massively.
To counteract this problem, he began splitting up his reserve divisions, and placing them in ‘penny-packets’ all along the line. One of his best was the veteran 15th Panzer Division, which had been split into battalions rather than kept as a whole. Similarly, Major Georg Zellner’s 3rd Battalion ‘Hoch-und-Deutschmeister’ Reichs Grenadier Regiment was part of 44th Infantry Division, but while he and a few other units were in the mountains north of Cassino, the rest of the division was sprinkled in the Liri Valley.
The problem with this approach was that it reduced the fighting capacity of the division; a smaller unit, such as a battalion, was obviously easier to overwhelm than an entire division. This was the kind of mistake the British used to make in North Africa before Alexander and Montgomery arrived and put a stop to it. Furthermore, it meant unit commanders were constantly faced with differing chains of command and different superiors. In battle, there is much to be said for familiarity and trust.
Struggling their way into this mayhem was the Werfer Regiment 71. They had been part of General Baade’s Army Group Reserve, but had now been hastily attached to the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division, which in turn had also been split up and posted to 51st Mountain Corps. The division’s progress to the front was piecemeal and too slow, although Werfer Regiment 71 were among the first to hurry south; Oberleutnant Hans Golda’s 8th Battery were nearing the front by the evening of the 12th. Artillery shells screamed overhead as he reached the staff post and was given his orders. With the light going, he and his unit set off again, to a bunker along the Gustav Line between Pignataro and Pontecorvo, and halfway from the ruins of Cassino town to the River Liri. ‘We were driving into a witches’ cauldron,’ noted Hans. ‘The night was pitch dark. Only the flash of the artillery broke through the darkness. The crashing, roaring and screaming was first of all in front of us and then all around us.’52 Nervously, they inched their way forward, the drivers dodging shell holes, the men lying flat on the ammunition and trying to make themselves as small as possible. Hans prayed they wouldn’t receive a direct hit.
Eventually they reached their new position. Hans was pleased to see that the Organisation Todt had built the bunkers reasonably well. Ammunition was stored and the werfers assembled and readied for firing. Soon after, a report arrived that enemy tanks were uncomfortably close: Hans’s battery was now firing into the shallow bridgehead made by 8th Indian Division. Ahead was the wreck of the village of Sant’ Angelo, which had been completely pulverised. ‘I set up an OP [observation post],’ noted Hans, ‘got it manned and detailed the anti-tank troop to man it.’53 With luck, these men would be able to provide a brief delaying action should the enemy completely break through.
* * *
To the south, US II Corps were now renewing their assault on the troublesome 400-foot-high and well-defended Spigno Ridge. It was another costly effort, although this time Lieutenant Bob Wiggans and his Company D were not part of the main assault on Hill 131. Rather, that honour went to Company I of the 338th Infantry. At the end of their attack, just sixteen men were left standing. Nonetheless, despite further setbacks and a certain amount of confusion by two new divisions fighting at night, the Americans stuck at their bloody task and in the early hours the Germans began to pull back. By morning on the 14th, most of the Spigno Saturnia Ridge, including Hill 131, was in US hands. By the following afternoon, Santa Maria Infante – another village utterly obliterated – was taken too.
On the Americans’ right, the French were also continuing their extraordinary advance. On the 14th, they broke into the Ausente Valley and captured Ausonia, a key town, before pushing on towards Esperia. And as they retreated, the German 71st Division was becoming more and more separated from the 94th Division opposing the Americans. For once the Italian landscape was working to the Allies’ advantage, for dividing the retreating Germans was the wedge of an almost trackless ridge of the Aurunci Mountains.
On the night of the 14th, Bob Wiggans led his platoon over Hill 131, picking his way through the American and German dead who lay thick across the ground. He’d not slept a wink since the battle had begun and yet now his men’s spirits were soaring. They felt they were at last on the road to Rome. So, too, did Mark Clark, even though he felt the two rookie divisions had been fortunate. ‘My fears,’ he noted in his diary, ‘that the enemy might react to our lack of aggressive attitude toward Spigno did not materialise.’54 In fact, much to Kesselring’s chagrin, the 94th Division opposite the Americans had disobeyed a direct order, and had placed their reserve troops along the coast rather than in the mountains ready to plug the gaps. Perhaps in the confusion the order never reached them – at any rate, once German losses began to mount, and it became clear there were no large-scale reinforcements available, General Hartmann, von Senger’s deputy, ordered his men to fall back. Clark expected a lot from everyone under his command, not least American troops new to battle, but the fact remained that the Americans had bludgeoned the German 94th Division to 40 per cent of its fighting strength on and around the Spigno Ridge. With the French leading the way, the breakthrough had been achieved. With the Gustav Line now broken in the US II Corps sector as well, the entire southern half of the Allied push was surging forward.
In the Liri Valley, however, XIII Corps were still struggling to make any serious headway. The stumbling block was the River Garigliano. Only by nightfall on the 14th was the full quota of nine pre-planned Bailey bridges completed, but even these represented major bottlenecks through which men and materiel had to pass. And where there are bottlenecks there are greater targets for the enemy. While it had been 8th Indian and 4th Division that had been given the job of leading the assault across the Gari, 78th and 6th Armoured had been kept in reserve. On the 15th, Leese and his XIII Corps commander, Lieutenant-General Sidney Kirkman, decided the time had come to send 78th Division into the breach, combined with the Poles’ second assault on Monte Cassino. Unfortunately, traffic congestion, along with German mines and concentrated shelling, ensured that 78th Division was unable to cross the river in time – and so the attack was postponed until the morning, as was that of the Poles.
This
