Stalingrad Of The Adriatic: The Sangro (Part 1)

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2:31During the early afternoon, one of the other companies moved up left of us through Marabella. They made a little ground opposition but drew a spate of enemy shellfire and had a toriot time. They were pinned down a couple of times, but it was a long range stuff and no one could do anything to help them. So they courageously came to their feet and pushed on through the gouting bursts of high explosive until they were in comparative safety on the far side of some terraces. It was horrible to watch and it was easy to identify with the feeling of vulnerable helplessness that comes when fire grows so intense that it seems to batter you to the ground in blasting waves of concussion.

3:12Then, as the fire slackened, one felt the great sympathy for the moral and physical effort needed to rise up and plot onwards. We had a bird's eye view from the hill and it was far easier for us to estimate the safest time to move than it was for the participants in the thick of it all. Your heart welled and your fists clenched with effort as you tried to encourage some prime figure still hesitating on the ground. Come on, come on boy, now, now's your chance. You can reach that wall in the next move, then you'll be safe. And then to realise that your effort was in vain. The figure you were urging would never move again.

3:54And that, of course, was Corporal Roger Smith of A Company, the 24th Battalion, New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

4:03Al Murray: Yes, and welcome to We Have Ways to Make You Talk with me, Al Murray, James Holland, your Second World War podcast for all your Second World War needs. And our needs bring us to, well, I mean, the title of this is interesting in itself, this series, this little series we're doing. It's the Stalingrad of the Adriatic. Now, the thing is, if something's being called that, what? Within a year of Stalingrad itself happening, right? It's got to be bad. Yes. That tells you two things, doesn't it? Tells you how Stalingrad have burrowed its way into everyone's imagination as the sort of worst possible urban fighting the world has ever seen and how quickly other places picked up that baton and ran with it, so to speak.

4:50Al Murray: um it and what we're talking about of course jim is the campaign at ortona so this is very much a sort of duke series really and i think you know it it's indicative of eighth army that has fought through north africa into tunisia and here it is again still surging forward in italy and it's a commonwealth force above and beyond anything else really isn't it well for anyone who's joined us in recent years or within the last few months. Duke is, in fact, an acronym that we coined on We Have Ways. You coined. You coined. I'm going to give you full credit for this. All right. This is a team effort, Jim.

5:33Al Murray: I always see it as that, you know. Half the acronym is mine, the other half is yours. No, which we coined, I mean, in the first year or so, 18 months of doing the podcast, to try and come up with a way of saying, British Commonwealth Empire, you know, so it's Dominions UK Empire. And that, I think, actually rather neatly sums things up. And what I quite like about it is it puts Dominions first. They're not there as an afterthought in the way you're thinking about this. And after all, this is how the British fought the First World War. And in this theatre, the Mediterranean in particular, this was where the soldiers from New Zealand and Australia were always going to be headed.

6:18Al Murray: This is where they were always going to be used and are used. And it's, you know, they only end up having to go east again when things go wrong in Singapore, where, you know, the Australian government recalls soldiers because it's worried about defending itself. And this is very much the imperial playbook that you have divisions or corps made up of people from all over the world, all the people that the British, you know, military had at their disposal, essentially. And it's completely a Duke story, this, isn't it? That's what's so interesting about the war in Italy, isn't it? Perhaps why slightly it slid off people's radar a bit in terms of the campaigns and how big they were.

6:59Al Murray: Because, you know, a large chunk of the people involved weren't British. And so if you've got enough Poles and enough Kiwis and... Well, yes, indeed. I mean, the Canadians first arrived in Sicily and then they're here all the way through. You know, they're right at the beginning. and also in this tale of ours we've got Irishmen as well. We've got the Irish Brigade, we've got the Fogs who we've mentioned in the past but we've also got a rather charming cipher clerk in the 8th Indian Division headquarters who is also an Irishman. He's very funny, a guy called Harry Wilson who writes this hilarious diary.

7:38I mean, it's just so funny but also very touching in times as well. But just very, very, very brief as a recap. So the Allies have invaded Italy in September. Eighth Army has come across the Straits of Messina, right down on the toe on the 3rd of September. And the main event has happened in the Bay of Salerno a week later. And it's all gone quite well to start off with. And the British have also come through Taranto as well and built up Eighth Army. The US Fifth Army, which also contains some British troops as well, has gone up the western side of Italy. Basically, there's four roads going up the leg of Italy.

8:16There's two in the middle. There's the Via Casalina, which is the main one, which is one inland on the west, which is the main road from Naples to Rome. Then there's the Highway 7, which is on the actual on the western coast. And that's discounted because there's too many kind of narrow overhangs of mountains and cliffs and whatnot, and you can't really manoeuvre. Then there's one right in the middle, which is just too narrow and too mountains. You can't do it. And then the other one is the Via Adriatica, Highway 14. And that is the kind of access northwards for Eighth Army. And everything's been going absolutely fine till the beginning of October when it starts to rain.

8:49And it then rains precisely for 30 seconds in every 60 seconds until the end of the year. And this is what they're all having to contend with. You know, if you average it all out. And this is what they're having to contend with. And of course, the big problem you have in Italy is wherever there's mountains, you have rivers. And rivers are flowing out of the mountains to the sea. And because Italy is long and thin and narrow, and the mountains run down the spine of it, the rivers are always coming out sideways at 90 degrees to the advancing allies. So they've got to cross endless amounts of rivers.

9:19And of course, as the Germans are retreating, they're blowing up all the bridges, making life as difficult as possible and blowing up roads and mountain passes and all the rest of it. So they're having to contend with this as well. And by the kind of sort of middle of November, they've managed to get through a load of them. They've got over the river Bathurno. They've got, this is Eighth Army, by the way, still under Montgomery at this stage. They've got over the Trino, and now they're coming up to the River Sangro, which is no small obstacle at all, and is also the line behind which lies the Bernhardt line.

9:50And for those of us who remember all the casino episodes we did, you may remember the Bernhardt line and then the Gustav line. It's two very close together, really solid, strong defensive positions through a sort of pass through the mountains. Well, the Bernhardt line goes all the way across, as does the Gustav line. and the Bernhard line and the Gustav line sort of meet halfway across the leg. So the Bernhard line stroke Gustav line is one and the same thing. And the main defensive positions of the Bernhard stroke Gustav line are the other side of the river Sangro.

10:24Al Murray: I've just been in Rome for a short break and the Tiber was a trickle. You know, they've had a hot summer like us. The Tiberi. Yeah, exactly. And if you go to Tuscany in the summer or Italy in the summer, The rivers are creeks at best, aren't they? But as you say, it's been raining. And I quite like the way you, I've never heard it's raining half the bloody time articulated 30 seconds out of 60 seconds. I've never heard it articulated like that, Jim, before. But I like it, right? It's raining half the time. So these rivers are in rude flood, aren't they? It's the thing. So they're bigger, bigger, bigger obstacles than they otherwise might be.

11:01Al Murray: They've actually done pretty well. They've gone quite quickly, Eighth Army. given in fact that, you know, they're characterised as being led by someone who's cautious and the Eighth Army are ponderous and slow. Actually, they've made really, really rapid progress up to this point, largely because the Germans are buggered off. Well, yeah, but they've also, they've taken this huge airfield complex around Foggia, which is on the Adriatic side, it's on the eastern side. And this is, as you come up past Brindisi, past Bari, and lots of mountains everywhere, and then suddenly there's this weird, flat-as-a-board plane, and you can see the sort of blue distant mountains all around them.

11:41But in this huge plane, which must sort of, you know, be kind of 25 miles by 30, that kind of sort of, well, maybe 20 by 20, something like that, there's all these opportunities to have airfields. And this is one of the prime, if not the prime objective of going into Italy in the first place, is so you can further tighten the noose around Nazi Germany with strategic bombers. So you've got your strategic bombers operating from East Anglia and from the eastern side of Britain, Bomber Command and the USA Fair Force. And now you're going to create the 15th Fair Force, which is going to operate out of these Foggia airfield complexes in about two-thirds of the way down the leg of Italy on the eastern side.

12:19So they've got that on the 27th of September. That's a massive, massive tick. And now they're pushing on beyond that. And they've captured the town of Termoli, which has been a difficult, hard fight, which has also involved the SAS and commandos and so on. And then they pushed up and they've got past the Trino And now the next big obstacle that they've got to get across is the Sangro. And the Sangro is going to be a tough one because it is the main Bernhardt-Gustaf line. It is the main line of defence, the MLD that the Germans have. And beyond that is Pescara. And that is the objective because from Pescara, there is a road then that crosses back across the road.

12:57Because, of course, all roads lead to Rome. Everyone knows that. And that is the axis for Eighth Army to then get swing back across and take Rome from the east while Fifth Army is coming up from the south. That's the grand plan. And they're hoping as well that by attacking on Fifth Army's front and on Eighth Frontier, you've got this two-fisted thing, which is going to pull the German resources in two different directions.

13:19Al Murray: The challenges are that there are fewer roads and you're mechanised. And you've got big sappering tasks to organise. So in terms of just being the traffic cop, that make sure that the bridging stuff gets through and you don't, you know, I mean, the logistical problems, and obviously the allied mechanised way of doing war, you know, the logistic issues are priced in. That's the way you're going to do it. So that's how your army is built. Actually, this is a very challenging environment to try and do that. It's not the jungle or anything, but it's incredibly difficult because of the paucity of decent roads.

13:54Al Murray: You know, this is the Mezzagiorno. Italy is not developed, is it? Because it's raining. Yeah, and because it's raining all the time. Yeah, exactly. Because they've got overwhelming air superiority. They've got overwhelming superiority in armour. They've got overwhelming superiority in guns. I mean, funny enough, the thing that they haven't got quite so much overwhelming superiority in is infantry. Yeah. But when you've got 10 temps cloud and when it's raining, even your tanks can't work very well because the bridges are blown. So then you've got to create a road around the bridge over some unmetalled ground, which then gets churned up because it's wet.

14:30Then nothing can get through until you've bridged it. But you bridge it and then all the bridges get blown away because there's another downpour and there's a huge great torrent and off it goes again. So you have to start all over again. So supplies are a constant problem. And the people who have to do the donkey work then are the infantry. And it's just, this wouldn't be a problem for the Eighth Army at all if it was high summer. They would just straight through. But they've got a determined enemy and it's winter and there's the Italian infrastructure. And those three combined make it incredibly difficult to push through.

15:06But be that as it may, there is huge pressure from back in Washington, back in London, to get on with it, to get to Rome by Christmas. That's the plan. And everyone knows about this. We've got to do it, got to do it, because we've got the second front, which is then going to become the main effort, which is, of course, a cross-channel invasion. There's all this pressure coming on. You've got to keep going, even though everything, is saying, just go on the defensive, set out the winter, start again in spring.

15:31Al Murray: And round the corner, of course, is the question of what happens next year in Northwest Europe, which may mean the rug gets pulled from this entire effort if it doesn't happen quickly enough. Those of you who've listened to our casino episodes know about this tyranny of overlord conception of gyms. There's never enough time, there's never enough stuff, and there's always a possibility somewhere else will need your shipping. The opposition isn't all that, is it? So the idea is that they're going to create bridgeheads over the Sangro on the 19th and 20th of November. Then there's going to be a main assault launched the following night, the 20th, 21st, which will be three divisions supported by most of 8th Army's artillery in a maximum effort for the Desert Air Force.

16:13Al Murray: And this is with the 78th Battle Axe Division with the 8th Indian on the left flank and then the New Zealanders 12 miles inland. So this shows you this is as duke an effort as it possibly could be. They'll bridge the Sangro once they've got across it. So they're going to ford it with infantry and armor. And in theory, the Germans here should be, this should be dealable with. It's the 6th, 65th Infantry Division, who aren't up to much. Lots, it's going to be lots of infantry operating with armor. Huge, great, big firepower effort, artillery, tactical air forces. So the Allied leaning in with your strengths, the whole thing.

16:54Al Murray: Monty also offers a diversion, a feint, doesn't he? So he's sending a diversionary force to attack the Castel de Sangro in the upper Sangro Valley. And this is 3rd Brigade of the Canadian Division, which up to that point hasn't had really much to do. A fairly quiet time. And the Sangro Valley in this part of the world, it's a lush green bowl entirely surrounded by mountains. It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. River snakes its way to the northeast, towards the coast, through the interlocking spurs of yet more peaks. It sounds quite defendable to me. Castel de Sangre itself is dominated by a thousand foot high, very steep hill, on which is perched a ruined medieval castle and chapel.

17:37Al Murray: And it's marked on the Canadian maps as 0.1009. It's like a sort of exaggerated anthill. And I've walked to the top of this. Again, bits of shrapnel all over the place. I mean, it's absolutely amazing. But you're thinking this is not a good place to attack. No, no, no. But this is the case with so much of the Italian landscape. So what's going to happen? Well, defending it are men of Oberst Ludwig Heilmann's 3rd Falschieger Regiment. He was a busy bee in Sicily, wasn't he? Obviously, Falschieger come with a sort of whiff of a reputation of being flinty and they're going to dig in and stick to it and make things hard for everybody.

18:18Al Murray: This is on the 23rd of November, isn't it? So after the planned start of the Sangro crossing. Planned start, yes. Yes, the planned start, yeah. Because, I mean, this is the thing, as we keep suggesting, the weather here is very much involved in decision-making and actually how effective, so your air power is and how quickly you can move stuff about on the battlefield. So the Canadians go in at one o 'clock in the morning on the 23rd of November, but Heilman, the wily fox, his men keep quiet. They don't respond. They just keep their heads down and they stay still and they stay silent while they're being shelled and they only open fire on the Canadians once they're halfway up the hill.

19:02Al Murray: And the leading company of the West Nova Scotias are cut to pieces. I mean, inevitably it's pouring rain. Of course it's raining. Of course it's raining. It's always raining. um and at first light there's a thick mist uh which does at least enable the survivors to slip away to safety and so a second ago you know you've got to do it again boys and everyone's going oh my god really and so up they go again the following night the 24th of november before which in time-honored fashion the artillery has absolutely pounded it to hell 5 000 rounds flung into the castle hill in just one half hour period just that's quite a heavy barrage put it mildly And that night, the Falsch and Jäger do what they usually do in these circumstances.

19:41They just sort of quietly slip away and the hill's behind. And by the 25th of November, the Canadians have managed to create a six-mile-wide bridgehead over the Sangro, over the River Sangro there, about a mile deep. But, you know, it's come at a cost. And this is the story of the Italian campaign. It's like every engagement is just chipping away. It's just like another kind of company that's been cut to pieces that has to be replaced, you know, and so on. And of course, between all this rain and fighting, preparations are continuing for the main event, which needless to say hasn't happened when planned because of this rain.

20:19And amongst those coming up to the front are the New Zealanders and the 24th Battalion. So all the battalions are numbered sort of 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. 28th is the Maoris, just purely Maori, volunteers to a man. But the 24th, they've landed at Taranto on the 9th of October. They've undergone some training, played a lot of rugby, and then slowly worked their way northwards. And by the 14th of November, they're near Lucera, which is just at the northern side of the Foggia plain. And then on again, trundling north in trucks over the mountain passes, sitting in the back of the trucks under the canvas, looking out at the rain and all the rest of it.

21:05And also moving up are the 8th Indian Division, who are there to start the preliminary operations over the Sangro. This is now, we've jumped ahead a little bit with the Castel de Sangro, but this is back on the 19th of February, and the attack was originally due to begin that night. And Corporal Harry Wilson, who's the cipher clerk that we quoted at the start, his boss is called Captain Asquith. and Asquith tells them, we're going a thousand yards southeast of Paglietta. The latter part of the route is under fire. And there's a sort of, Asquith always tells them bad news with enormous amounts of relish, which Wilson and his fellows really, really resent.

21:45And as they trundle up in their trucks, the sky is sort of sullen and bruised, but it's not actually raining yet. And Paglietta itself is a little village on a ridge overlooking the Sand Grove Valley. So it's south of the Sand Grove. And this has been captured 10 days earlier. And they move off through Shurny, which is about 10 miles to the south. And the road is dense with military traffic. Their trucks skid slowly past lines of track carriers, 25 pounders with their quads and limbers, and swerving to avoid lines of pack mule companies. And of course, the irony is that you've got this highly motorized and technically advanced allied armies going up through Italy, completely dependent on stoic, hardy animals, which sort of goes back to kind of Middle Ages and beyond.

22:34And there's a column of Gurkhas that he sees clutching Bren and Tommy guns as well as entrenching tools. And they head past in single file, walking faster than the cipher team's truck is moving. And there's a smell of mules and fuel and mud and dampness hangs heavy on the air. And Wilson writes...

22:54Al Murray: The cipher boys stayed very quiet, as if in deep thought. I lay back watching the rectangular view presented by the back of the truck. Contrasting scenes melted into one another. And they trundle on. The town behind them past woods and then ditches and embankments, occasional stone farmhouses. And at 10.30pm, they pass the gun positions who are already firing. You can just see it. It's such a vivid picture, isn't it? I mean, you can absolutely imagine it. It's dark. It's raining. You know, there are the guns, great orange flashes light the sky. They pass through another village. It's still and ghostly quiet.

23:32Camouflage troops skulk along the edge of the road, moving to their start lines. The small orange dots of cigarette ends are kind of acting like fireflies. And eventually, Wilson's cipher team do reach this ridgeline where Pallietta stands, sort of sentinel over the Sangro Valley to the south. um uh it's it's silent again deserted they stop at a farm just outside the village and wilson

23:56Al Murray: wilson says our driver spoiled the perfect night's work by knocking down half of harmhouse gate as clean as a whistle but how can you blame him it's dark you've got slits for headlights and all the rest of it and then it rains it rains heavily the whole of the following day so again the big attack which is called operation encroach that's a terrible that's a terrible terrible code name for an attack. Encroach. Terrible. I mean, that'd be a difficult thing to have to deal with, interminable cancellations and hold-ups. Especially as you're living in these conditions, you know, everyone's tired, everyone's wet.

24:29Al Murray: And the enemy, of course, isn't supposed to know about the existence of the 8th Indian Division. So they're on radio silence. And so during a quiet moment, Wilson and Lance Corporal Kennison, a pal, they go on a recce looking for somewhere nice to stay for a proper billet, a comfortable billet. And they find two decent houses deserted. And they think, well, this looks pretty good. We'll have a nose around here. And they discover a very nice looking comfortable bed as well. So they think, right, well, we'll sleep there tonight and we'll pocket anything worth pinching. No looting, of course. Kennison gathers a handful of fascist literature, which he then passes on to his captain, Captain Asquith, while Wilson takes an image of the Virgin and a decorated suit plate.

25:16Al Murray: as they're heading back. The owners walk in on them. I mean, it's incredible. And he recalls, instead of being grateful to find their house still standing, they began wringing their hands and crying to heaven because a few articles were missing.

25:35Al Murray: Unbelievable. To which Kennison replies, Jim, offer us your... Give them nothing back. They're dirty fascists. And that fellow fought against us. for, oh, I saw his uniform in the drawer. And Wilson, he can't help but agree, these people declared war against us and I don't see why it shouldn't cast them a soup plate and an image of the Virgin.

25:59Al Murray: Fair play. It's the rain, isn't it? For the rain, it raineth every day in this campaign. Monty issues a printed order of the day. One of these classic, mixture of scripture, cricketing metaphors, good hunting. he says we're going to give the enemy, we're going to knock them a colossal crack, which is how, you know, in some of the historiography since Monty's style has been characterised, isn't it? Colossal cracks. Make of that what you will. The entendre shall lie untested. But again, there's more rain, torrential rain falls that Saturday. And so Eighth Army and Monty, it's just all, they're being embuggered by the weather.

26:43Al Murray: The weather has a vote. And they do get small bridgeheads across the Sangro the night before. But rather than attacking, it's just, well, let's use those to get enough weapons forward, enough supplies forward to hang on to these new beachheads, as it were, rather than try and put in a colossal crack. And, you know, the idea that you're going to use all your armor, there's more biblical rain. On the ridge. On the ridge itself. Yeah, you use the armor on the ridge, but there's more rain, so you can't get there. flood water for the mountains as we suggested it sweeps down wrecks three of the bridges that the sappers have built over the previous three nights so they're back to square one the river was 50 yards wide and it's now more like 300 i mean you think that river survey you see these bridges are just left in the middle of this huge yeah yeah there they are standing on their own in this sort of lake that's emerged i mean how are you supposed to fight a fight a battle like that so So it's just delays and another delay, and everyone's keyed up.

27:43Everyone's struggling in the mud. You've got a vast amount of vehicles which are going across unmetalled roads, or roads that were metal but are dirt roads. They're sort of Strada Bianca rather than tarmac. And of course, it's just absolute carnage, isn't it? So they have to resort to Plan B, and a new plan is made. And the plan is that Eighth Indian Division will try and take the ridgeline village of Mozza Gronja on the 26th of November and Santa Maria two days later. Meanwhile, 78th Division, which includes the 38th Irish Brigade, which is actually on the coast, is then to clear the ridge to the coast with or without armour, but most likely now without armour.

28:26A job that was always going to be difficult is now made more difficult because it's wet, it's soggy underfoot and you haven't got any fastball.

28:32Al Murray: Well, should we take a break and come back and see how plan B is going to work out.

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30:47Al Murray: Welcome back to We Have Ways of Make You Talk. With me, I'm my own James Holland. So, Jim, plan A has been rained off. Rain has stopped plan A. Plan B is to try and do something from where they've got to. But, you know, surely their meteorologists are going, well, more of this coming, more of the same. Sorry, there's got to be some pretty dispiriting weather forecasting going on. The thing is, though, if you're in the infantry, if you're PBI at this point, you are really suffering, aren't you? Because you're living in this. You're being stood up. Then you're being stood down. you know, start lines and cancellations, all that business.

31:29Al Murray: And they're having to carry the load because you can't deploy your armor. Your artillery is only so mobile. Because that's the other problem here, isn't it? As you go forward, the guns have got to come up. And if you get too far forward, the guns haven't come up yet and the roads are unnavigable and the rivers haven't been crossed, then your guns can't come up close enough to offer effective fire support. So you're caught in this sort of doom loop. If you do too well on foot, then the support can't be brought to bear because the simple business of transportation is so difficult. No, and even if you can get across the river, even if you can bridge it, because of all the mud, it just takes longer.

32:08Because, you know, the fourth one in the line, in the battery, then gets stuck. So it has to be hauled out. So that doesn't have a hold up. I mean, you can just see how the whole thing sort of grinds to a halt.

32:18Al Murray: Spike Milligan's memoir is all about rain at this phase. It's all about, you know, waking up in a wet bed that it turns out that, you know, you dig a scrape to sleep in, it fills up with water. And it's just completely relentless. And they're moving the whole time. And every time they move, they're wet and guns slide off roads and all this sort of stuff. You know, it's all in there. Anyway, so another plan's been made. And that just sort of discards any subtlety whatsoever. So instead, using all the available air and artillery, a massed assault is going to be made on the 28th of November. But that, of course, is more than a week after Monty had originally meant to launch the attack operation in Crutch.

32:57So here you are, it's just sort of laid out in a plate. These are the problems they're facing. So of course, it's now blinding the obvious to the Germans where the British attack is coming from. And during the lull, Kesselring, who is the commander, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, a Luftwaffe Field Marshal, who is the commander in chief of German forces in Italy by this stage, visits the front and orders the defences around Motza Grone to be strengthened. And although 16th Panzer Division is in reserve on the Adriatic, a battle group from that division is now allward-forward, opposite the New Zealanders.

33:28And more troops are also arriving, including units of the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division and 26th Panzer Division. And 19th Panzer Grenadier, people may remember, has been at Sicily and before that in North Africa. And the tragedy for 8th Army is that if it had attacked as planned on the 20th of November, it would have only met the very, very weak 65th Infantry Division and would almost certainly have swept it aside. Then the road to Pescara and Avezzano, and indeed Ortona, would have been blown wide open. But because they've had a week and it's been really obvious that they're there, Kesselring can jiggle his forces around and reinforce it.

34:10And so it's going to be a lot, a lot, a lot harder. And so instead of three Duke divisions absolutely hammering against one very weak German infantry division, they now find themselves attacking four divisions of the enemy.

34:23Al Murray: Diversionary operations at Castel de Sangro and all that. What a complete waste because it's not diverging. It doesn't don't even. Is it? No, it's achieved nothing. But I mean, I was pessimistic about the meteorology, but the weather does improve, doesn't it, Jim? Earlier in the episode, you did say, you know, Rome by Christmas. It's the 27th of November. No Rome by Christmas. Come on. Come on. Be reasonable, London. Yeah, yeah. But if you burst through the 65th Infantry, you know, the road is open straight onto Pescara. You know, no organised defence. That's how you get through. It's dry on the 27th of November.

34:56Al Murray: And 100 tanks do get across the river. They move up. That evening, the 8th Indian Division take Motta Ghania, although they're then driven out by counterattacks to 26th Panzer. Not the 65th Infantry, but 26th Panzer have now arrived. And Harry Wilson is at 8th Division Headquarters. He watches wave after wave of Boston's and Baltimore bombers, then Kitty Hawks, roar over relentlessly. And by dusk, there are 12 bombers every quarter of an hour. So he's thinking, well, you know, we've got the air effort we need finally. Reports are reaching Harry in his cipher truck that scores of dazed and helpless prisoners are being escorted to the rear.

35:34Al Murray: And then at 10 o 'clock, every gun on the front, which is 312 of them, opens up with another great big, massive barrage. Wilson says the cypher truck rattled and the explosions were flung from one part of the sky to another, which looked like a glowing cinema screen. So, you know, it's on. Let's encroach, Jim. Let's encroach the enemy. yes well next day sunday the 28th of november uh is also clear hooray two days in a row what's what's going on with these clear skies and of course this allows the tactical air force to fly over in force and and eight farming absolutely smashes it uh i mean you know they're consolidating gains um it allows general all three who's the fifth corps commander to try tanks on the ridge after all what do you know and they're very effective and all day the artillery and support from the air is immense.

36:27And that night, the 8th Indians retake and hold Motsugonia, while the 78th Battle Axe Division launch a combined infantry and armour attack on the ridge early on the morning of the 29th. It's a sweeping success. So Alfre's gut instinct has been right. And once the tanks have clambered up onto the ridge, they discover there's no anti-tank defences at all. I mean, this is a really bad, low-grade infantry division that's holding that line. And this is 26th Panzer and 16 Panzer, which had just been hurriedly sent up. And British gunnery, combined with near constant strikes by the Desert Air Force, shows how potent the Allied forces can be when the wind's in their sails and the sun is out rather than torrential downpours.

37:10Anyway, meanwhile, on the flank of the left-hand flank of the 8th Indian is the New Zealanders.

37:15Al Murray: They cross the Sandgrave at about half past 10 on the night of the 27th of November. and they're walking on a gravel bank in the bend of the river and wading across the icy water that goes up to their chests. On the far side, and we started the episode with Roger Smith's vivid description, Smith and his mates in Lieutenant Turbot's platoon, I can't believe we've got another Turbot on the podcast, Lieutenant Turbot's platoon wait for the rest of the company and they take off their boots and wring out their socks. Then the artillery opens up, the gunnery starts, the sky sort of again being flickered shells hurling over in concentrations onto identified strong points and the men get up boots back on socks back on um and they head along a track while d company takes 0.122 known as pylon hill which sticks up sharply at the end of a low ridge um are you that's still there isn't it um pylon hill jim yeah yeah it's a very very unchanged landscape you can absolutely marry up the the 1943 photographs with with what you're looking at it's it's it's incredibly atmospheric there really really is and it's night and it's dark and the new zealanders swarm over the countryside north of the sangro so they've got over the river no problem at all and and and as i say it's these undulating hills and small woods and fields and little villages and isolated farmhouse and you know they're expecting to to bump into jerry but there's no sign of him and at one point in that night roger smith is up front he's he's now a section commander he's got a tommy gun in in his hands at the ready and he's conscious of just how still the night is and the artillery is is is still going over but it's not it's not the constant thunder that that has started off some of the uh desert battles that he's been involved in back in north africa and then suddenly he hears little gentle whistling and and the the whistling is of that famous tune Lily Marlene you know

39:13and a moment later he sees the silhouette of the distinct German coal scuttle helmet and he swings his tommy gun and pulls the trigger but nothing happens and he goes oh god he's forgotten to release the cocking handle properly um so he hastily re-cocks and pushes the magazine until it clicks as the German stops whistling as soon as he hears the click and tugs at his belt and throws a grenade and then leaps for the side of the road. But he's midair over this stone wall when Smith is able to open fire and sort of cuts him down. But at the same moment, a Bren also opens up. And a moment later, the grenade goes off, although it wounds one man in the leg, but not too seriously.

39:58And leaving the dead German, they go on. They don't see any more enemy at all until they reach this pyramid-shaped hill called the Colle Marabella. And for once, the timing with the artillery is absolutely spot on. The artillery absolutely plasters the hill. And then they assault two platoons from A Company dashing to the top. And a machine gun sputters. And Roger Smith hears someone shout, come on, get stuck into the bastards. And Turbot's platoon attack a barn on the far side of the hill. and Turbot pumps a magazine into the barn shouting, come out, come out, Tedeschi, Camerad. And moments later, six terrified Jerry's appear with their hand to hawk, their hands up.

40:37They also overrun a haystack hiding an MG machine gun on a hidden network of zigzag trenches on the kind of sort of on the reverse slope of this hill and capture two 50-millimeter anti-tank guns. And, you know, so far, so good. It's all been pretty straightforward. So they're all feeling like they do finally have the wind in their sails and that actually maybe they're going to have a pretty clear flush of things this time yes but they haven't of course reckoned on the next valley line because that's the that's the story in italy isn't it there's

41:07Al Murray: always another there's always another valley it uh you're just gonna have to do another one lads so meanwhile on the coast um 78th div has pushed on the irish brigade they've captured the village of fossa chassia they push on and then they capture a monastery that's been their objective and this is where the 65th Division are meant to be. They're not particularly brilliant infantry and they're still there. It's their area. And the Fogs capture a mass of booty, including a commander's car, 12 machine guns and they take 100 people prisoner. In all, over a thousand POWs are taken, including the 65th Division's commanding officer.

41:50Al Murray: So they're done. That's them cooked. they're broken those those who aren't captured or wounded or or been taken prisoners they they bug out they retreat uh routed essentially and it's and it's the fact that when the weather's clear and you can get all your moving parts moving and fight three-dimensionally with air and artillery and and armor the germans haven't got an answer and that's what certainly an infantry division like this that you know um they've got no way of dealing with that when the allies put the hammer down basically no or when i when i thought we put them absolutely not at all well the mark of that is the fact that um the air effort on the 29th 28th of november is that the allied air forces have flown over 500 sorties on the battlefront that accounts for it given it's a shorter day as well it's the other thing to remember of course is that the days that the days are really getting shorter there's only so much daylight to do this in as well yeah that's another thing that's another thing that's making things trickier for the Allies attacking.

42:53Al Murray: Yeah. There's an AOK 10 signal. Enemy air forces attacked in unheard of proportions. Our losses in blood and morale are increasingly high. The Germans know it too, don't they? They certainly do. And Kessering has sent his old, you know, the old reliable General Mayor Hans-Gunther Bader. Remember him from Sicily and North Africa and whatnot? the guy who used to have the claymore and wear a kilt, spoke fluent English and was an amazing equestrian. And anyway - Hello, I'm an eccentric. I'm eccentric, but I'm also rather brilliant. Anyway, he takes over 65th division. But when he then speaks to Lemelson, the acting 10th Army Commander, this is AOK 10, which stands for Army Oberkommando 10.

43:43So that's the headquarters of the of the 10th Army. He confesses that the scale of Allied artillery and air power has been truly overwhelming. So it's no wonder the 65th Infantry Division has struggled. And even Barda reckons it surpasses anything that he's witnessed in North Africa. And Barda goes, Vive Montgomery, you can count on that. So it's good that his reputation precedes him, don't you think?

44:06Al Murray: I think it's telling, Jim. Late on the 29th of November, General Meyer Fitz-Wenzel, who's Lemelson's Chief of Staff, speaks to his opposite number at Kesselring's headquarters, General Westphal. And the Allies total control of the air, Wenzel says. And the weight of artillery fire is so heavy that absolutely nothing can move. He says, it is simply impossible to do anything. He has everything concentrated right there. One cannot make a counterattack. The troops would be wiped out. Our loss is enormous. Oh, God in himmel. God in himmel. So, leave Italy would be my advice. What would you suggest, Jim?

44:45It's really straightforward. Give up. Take a leaf out of your 65th Infantry Division colleagues' playbook and hend a hock. Very straightforward. Anyway, the next evening, the 30th of November, Lemelson, who is the acting AOK-10 commander, personally rings up Westphal, Castle Ring's chief of staff, and reports that four entire battalions have been totally destroyed, including all three of the 145th regiment, and simply no longer exists. It's just gone. Bloody hell. So they are in big, you know, big bad trouble. So the brief break in the rain does deliver the next stepping stone for the 8th Army and shows what it can do when it's not raining.

45:26You know, not only has an infantry division of nearly 13 ,000 men been effectively destroyed, the ferocity of 8th Army's attack has spooked the German high command in a very big way, it has to be said. And in the first three days of battle, the 11 regiments of field artillery that have been flung against the German positions on the Allied side, on the Duke side, have fired a staggering 145 ,770 rounds. And Harry Wilson, after this battle, notes in his diary rather amusingly,

45:58Al Murray: I bet Jerry is sorry he started this war. I mean, I bet he is. That is an awful lot of ordnance. I mean, you know. That's an awful lot of ordnance. It's an awful lot of ordnance. I mean, obviously, 11 regiments. Isn't that many tubes, is it? It's not 1 ,000 guns, is it? So everyone's working really hard, aren't they? But that is a... Well, it's 11 times 24, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. So they're really busy if they're firing 145 ,000 rounds, aren't they? These crews are working absolutely flat out. It's extraordinary. But what's absolutely clear is the Allies have got enough in Italy to be able to smash their way through.

46:41When it's dry, that's the key point. But anyway, the New Zealanders, meanwhile, they're all now, so they're now pushing up the next line. So what happens is you have these leaps and the Bernhardt line is defence in depth. So just behind about sort of eight miles to the north of the Sangro is the River Morro, which is another of these rivers that runs from west to east, out into the Adriatic, down from the mountains. and this for the most part is in a very very steep-sided little valley um and just before they get there they reach the new zealanders that is reach the uh the little town of of castel frontano which is six miles north of the sangro and kind of two miles south of the moro something like that and of course one of the demoralizing aspects of fighting in italy is good it's one thing when it's raining that's demoralizing but even when it clears then you of course you can see yet more mountains and yet more ridges.

47:39And, you know, the eight mile stretch between the Sangro and the next River of the Morro is rolling hill country, but Route 84, which is the dirt road heading north, along which Roger Smith and the 24th Battalion of the New Zealanders are advancing, is overlooked the entire way by yet more immense peaks of the Maiella Mountains and the 8 ,000 foot foot high, Monte Amaro, snow-capped, breathtakingly beautiful, but unbelievably forbidding and barring the way north. And when you're there, it totally dominates the landscape. I mean, it really does. But the Sangro has been bridged again, and supplies are coming through.

48:18And the 24th Battalion attacks Castel Frentano on the 1st of December with the support of Shermans of the 4th Armoured Brigade and the Division's artillery. and Roger Smith and his platoon are supporting three Shermans as they enter the town. And it's a weird thing because the Route 84 winds up, you then does a dog, sort of loops round, crosses over a railway line, climbs up again, and then you've got this little dog leg back into the town, which is like all the towns in Italy perched on another ridge. So Route 84 has to do this sort of sharp 90 degree corner turn to reach the centre. And the lead Sherman is just starting to make his turn when there's a crack and a solid shot anti-tank round hits the wall of the house next to the tank and wails its way on down to the ridge.

49:04So the Sherman very quickly pulls back, which because it's a Sherman tank it can do quickly. And the commander clambers round and has a look around and together with Smith and the rest of the platoon, they realise that behind the house on the corner of this turning, there's a little narrow triangular alleyway which is sort of running up behind it. So they can, instead of exposing themselves around this corner, They can just do a little shortcut up this little alleyway. After getting back in his tank, the commander closes the hatch, swivels the tank, lurches forward. And Smith notes that there was a clattering crash, a squeal of treks above the roar of the motors, and the Sherman disappeared into the house in a most impressive manner, enveloped in a cloud of dust and debris.

49:47That building is someone's house. Yeah. Yeah.

49:52Al Murray: And this is more than Harry Wilson stealing a plate. an ornamental plate, isn't it? Smith then notices some Italians watching this from the arched entrance of a storeroom. It's a man and his wife leaning against his support, the shawl across her anguished face, and three terrified kids clutching their parents' legs, watching as the house is knocked down, as their house is destroyed by this German tank. And once it's passed through, a second and then the third tank use this shortcut as well, which like really rubs, really rubbing their noses in it. I mean, it's not good, is it? The woman then buries her head in her husband's shoulder and he strokes her hair and the kids are crying.

50:35Al Murray: And, you know, if you're going to fight war in a narrow country with 44 million people in it, this is what's going to happen, isn't it? And Smith says, you are in a way or out of the way. A yard or an inch can spill the difference between life and death, destruction or deliverance. It could have been bombs. It could have been shellfire. But it happened to be a Sherman tank. It's a day of hard fighting, as it always is in these towns. The Germans, they do what they can, but then they do the right thing. They pull out that night. By dawn on the 2nd of December, Rome by Christmas, everyone. Castor Frontano is in the Kiwis' hands.

51:09Al Murray: But as you say, that's all very well, but there's another mountain range. Mountains beyond where the next German, you know, to get to the mountains beyond is the next German defensive position. And you can bet your bottom dollar there'll be one after those mountains as well. and another dominating ridgeline that runs behind the River Moro from Otona on the coast to Osonia, 15 miles inland. Yeah, it's perched on, again, another steep ridgeline. And it's only four miles northwest of Castle Frontano. And so this is the next one they've, you know, the next fence they've got to leap, isn't it? And the Germans are now, now they're behind the Moro.

51:49Al Murray: It's a much stronger defensive position. they've got three divisions in the line not one like at the start of at the start of this episode and first falchium jaeger also answer the answer the call what will happen on the morrow jing's gonna go well well in the end jim because you know that after all that after all is the uh second world war slow burn is in the end we win yeah we don't do defeats in uh in this podcast anyway if you want to hear what happens next in a hurry um then go to our patreon become a member of the we have ways of making you talk patron um there's all sorts of content there for you to feast your eyes and ears on um there's audio books there's live streams there's a whole a whole series of perks of membership that we would love you to uh dig dig into um or you can go to our apple channel go officer class and listen to this ad free without all the other without all the other stuff that I'm sure you'd rather have.

52:48But I wouldn't bother. For an extra quid, I'd go for the full whack, wouldn't you? Well, absolutely, yeah. We will see you very, very soon.

52:53Al Murray: Und tschussi, tschuss. Cheerio. Cheerio.

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