11 May 1944 A.D. MONTE CASSINO, IT: U.S. 5th Army & allied forces renew assaults on German-held Gustav line—it falls 7 days later. Allies in Rome by 6 Jun 1944
11 May 1944 A.D. MONTE CASSINO, IT: U.S. 5th Army & allied forces renew
assaults on German-held Gustav line—it falls 7 days later. Allies in Rome by 6
Jun 1944
Editors. “1944 – The US 5th Army launches new attacks against the German-held Gustav Line.” This Day in
U.S. Military History. N.d. https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/may-11/. Accessed 6 May 2015.
1944 – The US 5th Army
launches new attacks against the German-held Gustav Line. The preparatory
bombardment begins just before midnight. It is followed up by infantry
advances. The US 2nd Corps, the Polish 2nd Corps, the British 13th Corps and
the French Expeditionary Corps are engaged. Attacking Allied forces amount to
12 divisions plus reserves. The German defenders have 6 divisions, including
reserves. The commanders of the German 10th Army (Vietinghoff) and the 76th
Panzer Corps (Senger) are both absent from their headquarters at the start of
the offensive. Meanwhile, Allied warships bombard German heavy artillery
batteries around Gaeta. The Gustav Line represented a stubborn German defense,
built by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, that had to be broken before the Italian
capital could be taken; the attack on the line was also part of a larger plan
to force the Germans to commit as many troops to Italy as possible in order to
make way for an Allied cross-Channel assault-what would become D-Day. With the
Eighth Army’s 1,000 guns, the Fifth Army’s 600, and more than 3,000 aircraft,
the Allied forces opened fire in a barrage of artillery from Cassino to the
Mediterranean Sea. It took seven days before the Gustav Line could be broken,
with the Polish Corps occupying the famed Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino.
The Germans withdrew, to the Hitler Line, but that too was penetrated. The
Allies would be in Rome by June 4.
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