Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

PLANNING FOR THE OFFENSIVE
each army had strong corps with which
to lead the assaults and sufficient forces
in reserve. In a very real sense Alexander
looked on the Fifth Army as his
army group reserve, since under his
one-two punch strategy he was to withhold
Clark's army until he decided
upon the most opportune moment to
strike the second blow. The Fifth Army
was to be prepared to move on 24hours
notice any time after D plus
five. 22
As had been the case south of Rome,
there was also to be a deception plan
with the Fifth Army playing the major
role. Before the Eighth Army's attack,
Clark's forces were to distract the enemy
by simulating an imminent attack
by both Allied armies along the 25-mile
front flanking Florence. The fact that
Alexander had originally planned to
attack in that sector would lend credence
to the deception. In preparation
for attack along lines of the original
plan, considerable shifting of troops
and equipment had already taken place.
As had Alexander's strategy south of
Rome, the strategy in the new offensive
would require the closest co-operation
between the two Allied armies and their
commanders. Otherwise, Kesselring
would once again be able to extricate
his forces as he had in June.
Allied Regrouping
Alexander's decision to shift the main
attack necessitated large-scale movement
of troops and equipment to the right
flank. The movement began on 15
August with long convoys of trucks and
tracked vehicles passing eastward
through Foligno, the main road junc-
22Ibid.
tion on Highway 3, sixty miles southwest
of Ancona. In eight days six
thousand tanks, guns, and vehicles
moved through the town.
By the last week of August the
Eighth Army was deployed across a 25mile
front: from the coast inland, the 2
Polish Corps, the brigade-sized Italian
Corps of Liberation, the Canadian 1 st
Corps, the British 5 Corps, and the
British 10 Corps. The entire force
totaled eleven divisions plus nine separate
brigades.2:l
Although Alexander's decision meant
the scrapping of Clark's earlier plans
based upon a joint effort with the
Eighth Army in the central sector, the
Fifth Army commander still wanted the
II Corps to make the main attack on
the army's front. After Kirkman's 13
Corps had been assigned to the Fifth
Army, Clark shifted the focus of his
offensive eastward to a sector between
Florence and Pontassieve, ten miles to
the east, hoping thereby to facilitate cooperation
between the American and
British corps. He intended that those
contingents of the 13 Corps within and
east of Florence remain in place as a
screening force for Keyes' II Corps
until the Fifth Army offensive began,
but when it became apparent that the
Germans were withdrawing into the
mountains to the north, Clark ordered
Kirkman to cross the Arno and to
regain contact.
As the II Corps relieved those Eighth
Army units west of Florence, Clark also
extended the IV Corps right flank
eastward to afford the II Corps an even
narrower front for the attack. The shift
230perations of the British, Indian, and Dominion
Forces in Italy, Part III, The Campaign in the
Northern Apennines, Sec. B, The Eighth Arm\.