Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

BREAKTHROUGH ON T'HE FIFTH ARMY'S FRONT 483
Genghis Khan Line, breaching the last
defenses south of the Po.
On the western side of the peninsula
the U.S. 92d Division had also resumed
an advance that had been limited since
the 14th to relatively modest gains by
several battalion-strength counterattacks
by the 90th Panzer Grenadier Division's
36Jsl Panzer Grnuuiier Regiment. On the
17th, the U.S. 473d Infantry advanced
astride the coastal road, Highway I,
crossed the Parmignola Canal, and
closed in on Sarzana, near the junction
of the coastal road with Highway 62 ten
miles east of the naval base of La
Spezia. To the regiment's right the
Japanese-American 442d Infantry tried
repeatedly, but in vain, to break
through defenses running north and
south from the mountain strongpoint
of Fosdinovo, five miles northeast of
Sarzana. 17
The reinforcements from the 90th
Panzer Grenadier Division, however, were
never intended to stop the Americans
indefinitely but only to cover a slow
German withdrawal into Sarzana and
La Spezia. Coastal batteries, firing from
Punta Bianca, three miles south of La
Spezia, harassed the Allied-held towns
of Massa and Carrara and the routes of
approaches passing through them. In
spite of frequent attempts by tank destroyers,
fighter-bombers, and even an
8-inch howitzer to silence the guns,
those on the eastern side of the peninsula
continued to fire until the 19th,
when, presumably, the Germans destroyed
them just before withdrawing.
The guns on the western side, however,
continued to fire for another day, until
17 Fifth Army History, Part IX, pp. 42-43; Goodman
Monograph. pp. 162-63.
the enemy, faced with the necessity for
a rapid withdrawal, because of the
Allied breakthrough on the central
front on both sides of Bologna, abandoned
the batteries to the 92d Division.18
The 20th of April thus marked the
turning point in the Allied spring of·
fensive across the entire front. From
that point the operation was to become
a pursuit with fighter-bombers of the
MAT AF flying in close support of
wide-ranging Allied columns fanning
out across the Lombardy plain. The
aerial harassment, which would soon
make of the Po River as much of a
barrier to the retreating Germans as
they had hoped it would be to the
Allies, represented the culmination of
11,902 Allied sorties of all types, flown
over the battle area since 14 April. The
six days since the Fifth Army's phase of
the Allied offensive had begun had
witnessed the greatest single week's air
support effort of the entire Italian
campaign and was a fitting climax to
the long months of Allied air operations
in the theater. 19
Meanwhile, five days earlier, the U.S.
6th Army Group under Lt. Gen. Jacob
L. Devers, operating north of the Alps,
had begun moving south and southwest
into western Austria toward the Austro­
Italian frontier. On 15 April the
SHAEF commander, General Eisenhower,
had issued an order sending
General Devers' army group, which
included the First French Army and
the U.S. Seventh Army, through Bavaria
and into western Austria toward
an eventual link-up with the Allied
18 Goodman "'fonograph, pp. 162-63.
,. Ibid.; Craven and Cate, eds., AAF III, pp. 486-
89.