Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

PURSUIT NORTH OF ROME 251
GENERALS BRANN, CRITrENBERGER, AND MASCARENHAS
Germans at the time, the shortage of
landing craft prevented such operations.
28
Both the specteJ" of Allied amphibious
landings and the very real £act of
partisan operations against German
lines of communications bedeviled German
commanders. The farther north
the Germans retreated the more active
became Italian partisan bands, many
led by former Italian Army officers. As
early as 13 June, Lemelsen's chief of
staff had obtained army group author-
2. See Special Invesligalions and Inlerrogalion
Repon, Operalion Lighlening USDlc/SII R 30/36,
15 Mar 1947, CMH files, and Senger, Neilha Hope
nor F ear, pp. 257-58. See also Greiner and
Schramm, eds., OKWIWFSI, KTB, IV(I), p. 519.
ity to punish acts of sabotage against
the German armed forces and to take
ten-fc)r-one reprisals against military-age
members of the civilian population f()r
every German soldier killed or
wounded by partisans. By mid-June
sabotage of the German lines of communications
had nevertheless reached
such proportions as to disrupt not only
long-distance telephone cables, upon
which the Germans had increasingly
come to rely fc)r their communications
because of Allied ail' attacks on military
signal facilities, but also to immobilize
even local telephone netwOl·ks. In the
vicinity of Siena, some 115 miles ' north
of Rome, partisans also cut a vital
lateral supply route leading from Gros-