Allied Organization in Italy

ALLIED ARMY

Order of Battle

Gothic Line

25th August 1944

After the fall of Rome, the Germans retreated back across the Arno River and into the natural defenses of the Appenine Mountains.  Several experienced Allied divisions were pulled out of Italy and sent to southern France.  The Allied Army launched an attack against the well-prepared GOTHIC Line defenses without a man-power superiority required for victory.

The Germans were able to hold the Allied advance and prevent them from entering the Po Valley before the fall rains and winter came.  This is the organization of the Corps and Divisions during the fall of 1944.  The commander’s names are listed in (paranthesis).

FIFTHTEENTH ARMY GROUP

(Alexander)

FIFTH U.S. ARMY

(Clark)

II CORPS        (Keyes)

34TH INFANTRY DIVISION   (Walker)

88TH INFANTRY DIVISION   (Kendall)

91ST INFANTRY DIVISION   (Livesay)

IV CORPS           (Crittenberger)

6TH SOUTH AFRICAN ARMORED DIVISION   (Poole)

85TH INFANTRY DIVISION   (Coulter)

442ND REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM

XIII BRITISH CORPS    (Kirkman)

1ST (BRITISH) INFANTRY DIVISION   (Loewen)

6TH (BRITISH) ARMORED DIVISION   (Murray)

8TH (INDIAN) INFANTRY DIVISION   (Russell)

RESERVE

BRAZILIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (Mascarenas de Morais)

1ST U.S. ARMORED DIVISION    (Prichard)

EIGHTH BRITISH ARMY

(Leese)

V CORPS          (Keightley)

1ST ARMOURED DIVISION  (Hull)

4TH INFANTRY DIVISION     (Ward)

4TH (INDIAN) INFANTRY DIVISION    (Holworthy)

46TH INFANTRY 'NORTH MIDLAND' DIVISION    (Hawkesworth)

56TH INFANTRY 'LONDON' DIVISION    (Whitfield)

7TH ARMOURED DIVISION

25TH TANK BRIGADE

I CANADIAN CORPS     (Burns)

1ST INFANTRY DIVISION     (Vokes)

2ND NEW ZEALAND DIVISION (Freyberg)

5TH ARMOURED DIVISION  (Hoffmeister)

21ST TANK BRIGADE

3RD GREEK MOUNTAIN BRIGADE

II POLISH CORPS           (Anders)

3RD CARPATHIAN RIFLE DIVISION

5TH KRESOWA INFANTRY DIVISION

2ND ARMOURED BRIGADE

X BRITISH CORPS              (McCreery)

10TH (INDIAN) INFANTRY DIVISION     (Reid)

9TH ARMOURED BRIGADE

Spring Offensive 1945

5th Army consisted of IV Corps in the west, under Maj. Gen. Willis D. Crittenberger, and the U.S. II Corps in the east, under Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Keyes

    34th Infantry Division

   85th Infantry Division

   88th Infantry Division

   91st Infantry Division

   92nd Infantry Division

   10th Mountain

   1st Armored Divisions,

    442d Regiment

   1st Brazilian Infantry Division

   Italian Legnano Combat Group

   6th South African Armored Division

British Eighth Army, commanded by General Sir Richard L. McCreery, included the Polish 2d Corps and the British 5th, 10th, and 13th Corps, and controlled eight divisions from four different nations, as well as four free Italian battle groups and a Jewish brigade.

Canadian

  The 1st Canadian Division was the first Canadian unit to be sent to Italy and was the first major deployment of Canadian troops in combat.    By the time of the invasion of Sicily, the Canadians were getting anxious to see battle.  They had been training in Britain for 2 years.  The only combat that any Canadians had seen was a small contingent had participated in the failed Dieppe Raid on the coast of France.  Now, the Canadian newspapers and politicians were calling for their troops to be used.  One fear was that Canada would not be considered a part of the Allies, which could influence world opinion of them after the war.  This long period of inactivity could cause the Canadian troops to lose their fighting ability.

   At the last minute of the planning for Operation HUSKY, Churchill recommended that the Canadian troops be used in the invasion of Sicily.  Eventually, the 1st Canadian Division was substituted for the 3rd British Division.   The Chief of the Imperial General Staff immediately sent word of inclusion of Canadian troops in Operation HUSKY to the Allied commander in the Mediterranean Theatre.

        Personal from C.I.G.S. for General Eisenhower, repeated General Alexander.

        1. Both political and military grounds make it essential that Canadian forces should be brought into action this year. It had been hoped to employ them in operations across the channel from U.K. but likelihood of such operations has now become extremely remote owing to recent addition to HUSKY of practically all remaining landing craft.

        2. It has therefore been decided that 1 Canadian Division and a tank brigade similarly organized to 3 Division and its tank brigade will replace latter in the Eastern Task Force for the HUSKY operation subject to confirmation from Canadian Government which we hope will be immediately forthcoming.

        3. I very much regret this last minute change. We have been very carefully into its implications and consider it quite practicable.  The Canadian Division is in a more advanced state of combined training than 3 Division and the Canadian planning staff have already started work with full assistance of 3 Division so no time is being lost.

        4. Request that Force 141 and 545 be informed.

 The 1st Canadian Division and the 3rd British Division met on all levels to transfer plans on the operation.  Their cooperation went so well, that the 3rd British Division and the 2nd Canadian Division were used together in the Normandy invasion.

Polish

  The Polish soldiers traveled a long, hard road to get to the Italian Campaign and showed that they were willing to fight the Germans in any location to get their country back.   Poland was the first country attacked by Germany and their dubious ally, Russia.  The Polish prisoners were placed in Russian camps.  When the Germans turned against the Russians, the British convinced the Russians to release the Poles so they could help fight.  The Polish troops were outfitted by the British and sent to the 8th Army.

   Lt.-General Wladyslaw Anders was the commander of the Polish Corps and he too was released from Russian PW camp to serve in Italy.

Figures & Statistics

   

Casualty Counts

Salerno - Sept 9 -16, 1943   British deployed twice as many troops as the Americans

   British X Corps      531 KIA    1,915 WIA    1,561 MIA

   U.S.  VI Corps        225 KIA       835 WIA        589 MIA

Rapido River - 36th Division, Jan 1944.  In forty-eight hours the 141st and 143d Infantry regiments had suffered 2,128 casualties: 155 KIA, 1,052 WIA, and 921 MIA. Enemy losses were negligible.

Anzio Campaign

During the four months of the Anzio Campaign the Allied VI Corps suffered over 29,200 combat casualties (4,400 KIA, 18,000 WIA, 6,800 MIA) and 37,000 noncombat casualties. Two-thirds of these losses, amounting to 17 percent of VI Corps' effective strength, were inflicted between the initial landings and the end of the German counteroffensive on 4 March. Of the combat casualties, 16,200 were Americans (2,800 IA, 11,000 WIA, 2,400 MIA) as were 26,000 of the Allied noncombat casualties*.

*During WW2, casualty figures for non-combat would sometimes almost equal to the combat casualties.

British 1st Division at Anzio over 6 months

  Officers   100 KIA   295 WIA

  Enlisted Men   1,030 KIA   4,653 Enlisted Men

January 30  German losses over 2 days

    188 KIA   465 WIA  443 MIA  (mostly from Herman Goering Division)

Cassino -  After multiple air assaults, the firing of 600,000 artillery shells, and 1,316 New Zealander and 3,000 Indian casualties, the assaults on Cassino by the New Zealand Corps was halted on 23 March, 1944.

DIADEM - Allied attack on 11 May 1944,

    Fifth Army casualties

             17,931 US casualties: 3,145 KIA,  13,704 WIA, and 1,082 MIA.

            10,635  French (5th Army) casualties

             3,355 British (5th Army) casualties

     Eighth Army casualties 11,639

     Total Allied -  43,000

    German 38,000, for 10th and 14th Armies, not including 15,606 PW.

Operation OLIVE commenced on 25 August 1944 with the British 5 Corps and Canadian 1 Corps attacking on east coast.   By 3 September, they fell short of their objectives of Rimini and Romagna Plain and had suffered 8,000 British casualties.

GOTHIC LINE - Apennine Mountains

September 12-18 - Attack to capture Il Futa Pass

  II Corps(91st & 85th Divisions) had sustained 2,730 casualties.

September 22 - 31, 88th Division suffered 2,105 casualties.

October 4 - 91st Division lost over 1,730 American casualties in just four days.

October 5-9 - Fifth Army units advanced only three more miles, taking an additional 1,400 casualties.

    In Summary, between 10 September and 26 October, 1944

         II Corps(4 divisions) over 15,000 casualties ( 88th Division alone over 5,000 men).

        Eighth Army - 14,000 casualties for about same period

Operation FOURTH TERM, lasted from 4-11 February 1945 and involved the U.S. 92d Division attack against Italian Fascist forces in the Serchio River Valley.  IV Corps lost 700 casualites in 4 days.

German Dead

   Pomezia German Cemetery   27,432 buried

   Cassino Cemetery                 20,043 German dead

Troop Strength

Spring 1944 Offensive  -  With the addition of two new American infantry divisions to the II Corps, the 85th and 88th, the arrival of the IV Corps headquarters, and the addition of the 4th Moroccan Mountain and French 1st Motorized Divisions to the FEC, Fifth Army strength was over 350,276 by late April. The Eighth Army front had been extended westward across the Apennines to Cassino. Its multinational force of 265,000 men represented twenty-one nations and included the British 5, 10, and 13 Corps; the Canadian 1st Corps; the New Zealand Corps; and the 2d Polish Corps under Lt. Gen. Wladyslaw Anders.

January 1945  - The Fifth Army consisted of about 270,000 soldiers plus over 30,000 more in replacement depots and over 2,000 artillery pieces and mortars, and thousands of vehicles, all positioned along a 120-mile front extending east from the Ligurian coast, across the crest of the Apennines, to a point southeast of Bologna.

Logistics

   During 121 Days of Anzio 3801 Tons of supplies lost due to shelling or 31.5 tons per day.

   Supplied by 1,500 Trucks(1/2-ton), or  350-400 trucks per day carried 1750-2000 tons.

  Feb 15-20, 1944 -    2500 Tons of Artillery fired

Bombing of Cassino -    3 Tons of bombs for each paratrooper killed.

   (This ratio may be misleading.  I don't know if this figure covers the bombs dropped on the Abbey of Cassino, the town of Cassino or the entire front.  If it included the bombs dropped on the Abbey, then that is why the ratio is so large; the intent of the bombing of the Abbey was to destroy the structure and not enemy troops.)

Operation DIADEM  May10 -  3,500 Tons of Artillery fired

    Casualty Count

Salerno - Sept 9 -16, 1943   British deployed twice as many troops as the Americans

   British X Corps      531 KIA    1,915 WIA    1,561 MIA

   U.S.  VI Corps        225 KIA       835 WIA        589 MIA

British 1st Division at Anzio over 6 months

  Officers             100 KIA   295 WIA

  Enlisted Men   1,030 KIA   4,653 WIA