Spring 1945 offensive in Italy

Background

The Allies had launched their last major offensive on the Gothic Line in August 1944, with the British Eighth Army (Lieutenant-General Oliver Leese) attacking up the coastal plain of the Adriatic and the U.S. Fifth Army (Lieutenant General Mark Clark) attacking through the central Apennine Mountains. Although they managed to breach the formidable Gothic Line defenses, the Allies failed to break into the Po Valley before the winter weather made further attempts impossible. The Allied forward formations spent the rest of the winter of 1944 in inhospitable conditions while preparations were being made for a spring offensive in 1945.

Command changes

When Field Marshal Sir John Dill, the head of the British Mission in Washington, D.C., died on 5 November, Field Marshal Sir Henry Maitland Wilson was appointed his replacement. General Harold Alexander, having been promoted to Field Marshal, replaced Wilson as Allied Supreme Commander Mediterranean on 12 December. Clark succeeded Alexander as commander of the Allied forces in Italy (renamed 15th Army Group), but without promotion. Lieutenant General Lucian Truscott, the commander of the U.S. VI Corps from the Battle of Anzio and the capture of Rome to Alsace, landed in the South of France during Operation Dragoon and returned to Italy to assume command of the Fifth Army.

On 23 March, Albert Kesselring was appointed Commander-in-Chief West, replacing General-Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Heinrich von Vietinghoff returned from the Baltic to take over from Kesselring and Traugott Herr, the experienced commander of the LXXVI Panzer Corps, took over the 10th Army. Joachim Lemelsen, who had temporarily commanded the 10th Army, returned to command the 14th Army.

Orders of battle

Allied manpower shortages continued in October 1944. The 4th Indian Infantry Division had been sent to Greece and the British 4th Infantry Division had followed them in November along with the 139th Brigade of the British 46th Infantry Division. The rest of the division followed in December along with the 3rd Greek Mountain Brigade. In early January 1945, the British 1st Infantry Division was sent to Palestine and at the end of the month the I Canadian Corps and the British 5th Infantry Division were ordered to the North West Europe Campaign. This reduced the Eighth Army, now commanded by Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery, to seven divisions. Two other British divisions were to follow them to North-Western Europe, but Alexander kept them in Italy.

The U.S. Fifth Army had been reinforced between September and November 1944 with the 1st Brazilian Division, and in January 1945, with the specialist U.S. 10th Mountain Division. Allied strength amounted to 17 divisions and eight independent brigades, including 4 Italian groups of volunteers from the Italian Co-Belligerent Army which were equipped and trained by the British. The Jewish Brigade, a formation of the British Army composed of Jews from Mandatory Palestine led by British-Jewish officers, was also deployed to take part in the offensive. Total Allied strength was equivalent to just under 20 divisions. The 15th Army Group ration strength was 1,334,000 men, the Eighth Army having an effective strength of 632,980 men, and the Fifth Army 266,883.

As of 9 April, the Axis in Italy had 21 much weaker German divisions and four Italian National Republican Army (ENR) divisions, with about 349,000 German and 45,000 Italian troops. There were another 91,000 German troops on the lines of communication, and Germans commanded about 100,000 Italian police. Three of the Italian divisions were allocated to the Ligurian Army under Rodolfo Graziani which guarded the western flank facing France. The fourth division was attached to the 14th Army in a sector thought less likely to be attacked.

Plan of attack

On 18 March, Clark set out his battle plan. Its objective was "to destroy the maximum number of enemy forces south of the Po, force crossings of the Po and capture Verona". In Phase I, the Eighth Army would cross the Senio and Santerno rivers and then make a dual thrust, one towards Budrio parallel to the Bologna road, Route 9 (the Via Emilia) and the other northwest along Route 16, the Via Adriatica, towards Bastia and the Argenta Gap which was a narrow strip of dry terrain through the flooded land west of Lake Comacchio.

An amphibious operation across the lake and parachute drop would bring pressure to bear on the flank and help to break the Argenta position. Depending on the relative success of these actions, a decision would be made on whether the Eighth Army's prime objective would become Ferrara on the Via Adriatica or remain Budrio. The U.S. Fifth Army was to launch the Army Group's main effort at 24 hours notice from two days after the Eighth Army attack, and break into the Po valley. The capture of Bologna was looked upon as a secondary task.

In Phase II, the Eighth Army was to drive northwest to capture Ferrara and Bondeno, blocking routes of potential retreat across the Po. The U.S. Fifth Army was to push past Bologna, north to link with Eighth Army in the Bondeno region, to complete an encirclement of German forces south of the Po. The Fifth Army was to make a secondary thrust further west towards Ostiglia, the crossing point on the Po of the main route to Verona. Phase III involved the establishment of bridgeheads across the Po and exploitation north.

The Eighth Army plan (Operation Buckland) had to deal with the difficult task of getting across the Senio, with its raised artificial banks varying between 6 m (20 ft) and 12 m (40 ft) in height and honeycombed with tunnels and bunkers front and rear. V Corps was ordered to make an attack on the salient formed by the river into the Allied line at Cotignola. On the right of the river's salient was 8th Indian Infantry Division, reprising the role they played crossing the Rapido in the final Battle of Monte Cassino. To the left of the 8th Indian Division, on the left of the salient, the 2nd New Zealand Division would attack across the river to form a pincer. To the left of V Corps, on Route 9, the II Polish Corps would widen the front further by attacking across the Senio towards Bologna. The Poles had been desperately under strength in the autumn of 1944, but had received 11,000 reinforcements during the early months of 1945, mainly from Polish conscripts in the German Army taken prisoner in the Battle of Normandy .

Once across the Senio, the assault divisions were to advance to cross the Santerno. Once the Santerno was crossed, the British 78th Infantry Division would reprise their Cassino role and pass through the bridgehead established by the Indians and New Zealanders and drive for Bastia and the Argenta gap, 23 km (14 mi) behind the Senio, where the dry land narrowed to a front of only 5 km (3 mi), bounded on the right by Lake Comacchio, a huge lagoon running to the Adriatic coast and on the left by a marshland. At the same time, the British 56th (London) Infantry Division would launch the amphibious flank attack along Lake Comacchio. On the left flank of V Corps, the New Zealand Division would advance to the left of the marshland on the west side of Argenta while the 8th Indian Infantry Division would pass in army reserve.

The Fifth Army plan (Operation Craftsman) envisaged an initial thrust by IV Corps along Strada statale 64 Porrettana to straighten the army front and to draw German reserves away from Strada statale 65 della Futa. II Corps would then attack along Strada statale 65 towards Bologna. The weight of the attack would then switch westward again to break into the Po valley skirting Bologna.