Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

STALEMATE IN THE MOUNTAINS AND ON THE PLAIN 407
Division to their Ligurian flank. Moreover,
aerial reconnaissance had confirmed
partisan and prisoner of war
reports that bridges and roads destroyed
earlier in the upper Serchio
Valley had been repaired. Even as the
vital Allied port of Antwerp seemed to
be the ultimate objective of the German
counteroffensive in the Ardennes,
so now it seemed to the Fifth Army's
intelligence officers that the port of
Leghorn might become the objective
of a similar operation in the northern
Apennines on the Fifth Army's left
flank.
Such speculations seemed not without
substance, for at the beginning of December
all that stood in the way of
a German thrust toward Leghorn was
General Almond's relatively inexperienced
92d Infantry Division, holding a
6-mile-wide front from the coast inland
to the village of Barga in the upper
Serchio valley. This division, made up
entirely of Negro enlisted men, with
officers from both races, had been
activated at Fort McClellan, Alabama, in
October 1942, from a cadre of officers
and men drawn from the 93d Infantry
Division, the first Negro combat division
to be organized in World War 11. 18
Since its activation, the 92d Division's
ranks had been characterized by unusually
high percentage of poorly educated
men. At the end of January 1944,
the division's General Classification Test
score percentages disclosed that none of
18 See Lee, The Employment of Negro Troops, for the
details on the division's training and organization
difficulties. See also Paul Goodman, A Fragment of
Victory, a special monograph (hereafter cited as
Goodman Monograph), written at the Army War
College, Carlisle, Pa., 1952; and IG file on 92d Div.
Unless otherwise indicated the following section is
based upon these sources.
the enlisted men assigned was in Class
I, 10 percent were in Class II, IS
percent in Class III, 41 percent in Class
IV, and 21 percent in Class V. Thirteen
percent had received no score at all
because they were illiterate and unable
to take the test. Obviously the men of
the 92d Division had come into the
Army with far fewer educational and
cultural opportunities and from homes
with significantly lower socio-economic
status than men in other combat divisions.
This situation was widely known
throughout the army and, even before
December 1944, had given the division
a reputation as an undesirable assignment
for white officers.
Only one of the division's regiments,
the 370th, had seen any action, that as
part of Task Force 92. Although the
division commander, General Almond,
had nothing but praise for his unit's
artillery, communications, supply, medical
service, and transportation troops,
he was less enthusiastic about the performance
of the combat infantry, which
had shown little steadiness in its first
encounter with the enemy. The very
limited battle experience gained by the
370th Infantry since October had, in
Almond's opinion, "been no compensation
for the loss of key leaders incurred."
On 18 October the second of
the regiments, the 371 st Infantry, had
arrived at Leghorn and relieved the
370th Infantry on 31 October. After
the 36Sth Infantry had completed its
deployment on 8 November, the 92d
Division took over a 6-mile front in the
Serchi6 valley on the I I Corps' left
flank.
I t was hardly surprising, therefore,
that one of General Truscott's first
decisions as Fifth Army commander