The Story of the 34th Infantry Division
Book II • Pisa to Final Victory

Chapter XIX • GOTHIC LINE
Considering [pp. 11-16]

   While the 34th was in training it must not be thought that either the Allies or the enemy were relaxing and idly awaiting the next move. On the contrary, most vigorous preparations were being made on both sides to continue the struggle - an encounter which, for us, [poised] itself at the penetration of the entire Apennine Mountains. The campaign in Italy had, by now, become merely a part, albeit an important part, in the gigantic struggle which was in full fury throughout the length and breadth of the European continent. Magnificent Divisions, which had so gallantly and loyally fought alongside the 34th for almost a year in the grueling Italian campaign, had set sail for southern France and were, even at that moment, adding brilliant chapters to their record of fame in an astonishing drive from the beaches of the Riviera up the Rhone Valley toward Germany. The Normandy beachhead had bulged and spread by virtue of its own weight and power, engulfing the stricken German forces in a surging tide of strength and speed. On the eastern front, vengeful Russians, seeing the light of victory not many miles ahead, crashed through entire German armies, annihilating and scattering them.

   But what of Italy? The Eighth Army, whose exploits throughout the Italian campaign would be hard to match, was on the move again, this time attacking with intense fury on a narrow front with the avowed objective of turning the entire Apennine defenses, by penetrating through the narrow plain which lay between the mountains and the sea north of Rimini, and thus of flooding into the Po Valley behind the Germans.

   By the end of August [1944] the battle there was in full swing; much progress had been made and the Germans were growing anxious. After so many years of war, even the tough, smooth-running German war machine was going short of raw material - that is, of men. Two first-class divisions were removed from Italy to be replaced by a couple of inferior formations; other fine troops whom they could ill afford to spare from the active fighting lines were dispatched rapidly from the Eighth Army front to the Franco-Italian border, there to stand watch ceaselessly lest victorious Allied troops from France should spill over the Alps and sweep across the Po Valley in the German Army's rear. The Fifth Army, though quiet now, lay along the Arno River and no one knew when it would spring into action. Yet in spite of this threat, the Germans were forced to remove units from the sector north of Florence and to rush them as soon as they could to the Rimini gap where the Eighth Army was continuing its expert butchering. If the Germans could plug this one small leak in an otherwise water-tight defense system protecting the Po Valley, who could say how long the war in Italy might last? To make sure that nothing was left undone to hasten the victory in the peninsula, the Fifth Army prepared itself to assault the German defensive line frontally, to cross the Apennines and to enter the Po Valley where great possibility for exploitation existed. Even had we to conduct the enterprise against an enemy recently installed in the mountains, it would still have been fraught with risk and hardship; but the Allies knew and had known for many months that the toughest part of the Italian campaign would only have begun when Florence fell.

   As far back as the initial Allied landings on the toe of Italy and at Salerno, the enemy high command had believed that the defense of the entire peninsula in the face of Allied air and amphibious superiority was not feasible. Searching for the most economical defense line by whose retention the maximum share of Italy's wealth could be assured to them, the Germans decided to base their main line of fortifications on the southern crest of the Apennine Mountains chain, north of the Arno River, where a kink in the backbone of Italy placed the forbidding heights in a barrier from the western coast right across the boot almost to Rimini, now under assault of the Eighth Army. This belt of defenses the Germans had named the "Gothic Line".

   From the start it was conceived as a long-term project. Even in January 1944 constant aerial reconnaissance had discerned the preparations for permanent concrete defenses,field works, and the beginning of one of the most elaborate anti-tank ditches in the theater. Although the successful German resistance along the Gustav Line at Cassino had diverted the enemy's attention from the Gothic Line to positions south of Rome, the defeat which the Germans had suffered in the fighting from May onward had refocused their attention to their original defensive choice. Reports from many sources testified to the feverish activity in the Apennines and by August the project was very nearly complete. The line itself was three to four miles deep and consisted of field-type bunkers revetted with logs, rails, and railroad ties, "text-book" concrete emplacements for anti-tank guns, tank turrets with high-velocity guns dug into the rock so that only 12 inches of the cupola appeared above the surface, enormous minefields sown wherever movement appeared feasible, anti-tank ditches wide and deep enough to accommodate a double-decker bus, their sides strongly reinforced with pine saplings, and the whole undertaking protected by thick bands of barbed wire and anti-personnel mines actuated by trip wires. Some of the most cunning positions known were anti-tank and machine-gun emplacements dug into the face of a cliff in such a manner that only a small embrasure could be seen from the Allied side. Access to this artificial cave was gained by means of a trap door in the surface of the road above, down a vertical shaft leading to the firing chamber.

   Through this formidable network of defenses two main routes existed in this sector north of Florence. One was the main highway (No. 65) connecting Bologna to Florence; the second was a parallel road [S 325] connecting Bologna with Prato, running by way of Vernio. Both of these highways ran though easily defensible mountain passes, the most famous of which was the Futa Pass of Highway 65. The Germans had prepared demolitions on all bridges along these roads, and at awkward hairpin turns they had laid 500 pound charges at intervals of a few hundred yards which, on being detonated, would blow the road off the face of the earth.

   The penetration by frontal assault of long-prepared defenses, adequately garrisoned, is one of the most costly projects known to warfare, and while everybody realized that the operation, if successful, would virtually end the war in Italy, it was in no mood of lighthearted optimism, but rather one of grim determination, that the 34th Division began preparations to play its part in the attack on this famous position.

   It was practically impossible to count upon surprise to help us to secure an initial advantage, which in some degree might compensate for the handicap which any attacker must bear in reducing a fortress. A number of troop movements designed to deceive the enemy about the point of our main effort were carried out, and various cover measures were put out to harass the enemy's intelligence service. Nevertheless, it was well known that the enemy in his positions overlooking Florence was keeping a close watch, not so much on our movements in the rear areas, as upon the frontline troops facing him.

Chapter XVIII ROSIGNANO SOLVAY Training	Chapter XX FLORENCE - MONZUNO Assaulting
Return to the beginning, The Story of the 34th Infantry Division Introduction, Foreword, Contents

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