Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

CHAPTER XIII
Pursuit North of Rome
General Alexander's order of 5 May
which had set the drive on Rome in
motion had also designated the broad
objectives for the next phase of the
campaign. General Clark's Fifth Army
was to pursue the enemy northwest of
Rome to capture the Viterbo airfields
and the fXJrt of Civitavecchia, thereafter
to advance on Leghorn. General Leese's
Eighth Army was to pursue the enemy
in a northerly and northeasterly direction
along the general axis Terni-Perugia,
thereafter to advance on Florence
and the Adriatic fXJrt of Ancona.
On 7 June Alexander further refined
these instructions. Both armies were to
continue their advance "with all fXJssible
speed"-the Fifth Army to advance
toward the western half of the Northern
Apennines, comprising a triangle
connecting the cities of Pisa, Lucca, and
Pistoia, and the Eighth Army toward
an area enclosed by a triangle connecting
the cities of Florence, Arezw, and
Bibbiena. ,Both armies were to maintain
close contact on their inner flanks, but
not to wait ()r one another, and were
to bypass strongpoints in hope of maintaining
the momentum that had carried
them to Rome and beyond. For Alexander,
privy to Kesselring's situation
and intentions, believed that if his armies
could sustain that momentum they
might have a second chance to outflank
and destroy Vietinghoffs Tenth Army
and breach the Gothic Line before the
Germans had an opportunity to occupy
it. 1
Although traditional military wisdom
at this point called for a headlong
pursuit of the enemy to keep him from
regrouping and re-forming his lines,
Allied commanders for the next two
weeks spent considerable time in shuffling
units back and forth across the
front. One reason is that plans for
Operation ANVIL called for the Fifth
Army to give up two of its four corpsthe
U.S. VI and the French Expeditionary
Corps. Other reasons were growing
logistical problems and difficult terrain.
Perhaps for these reasons General
Clark chose not to base his planning
upon the intelligence provided by the
ULTRA interception and decipherment
of radio traffic between OKW and
Kesselring's headquarters.
This decision at this fXJint was unfortunate.
Heavy losses in lx)th men and
materiel had rendered at least three of
the Fourll'mlh Armv's divisions ineffective
and reduced the remainder to half
strength. Also, a wide gap had opened
up between the Tenth and Fourteenth
Armies. As his armies withdrew north of
Rome, Kesselring intended to shift sufficient
forces from the Tenth to the
Fourteenth Army in an attempt to reinforce
the latter and thereby close the
1 Winterbotham, Tilt' Ultra Sf'rrpt, pp. 159-60;
SAC Despatch. The Italian Campaign, 1 () May-12
Aug 1944, typescript in CMH.