Artillery, Frenchmen, Etc.

All week the Allies rolled up the shin of the Italian boot, while the northern end of the main Italian battle line stood silent. The aim of Allied Commander Sir Harold R.L.G. Alexander seemed clear: to push back the German right flank, smash into it with his troops at the Anzio beachhead.

Mighty Cassino, famed northern anchor of the 25-mile "G for Gustav" Line, fell early (see below). West of the fallen fortress, the Poles pushed into Piedimonte and uprooted the anchor of the supposedly powerful secondary "Hitler Line."

Strongest points on this mountainous line were probably between Pontecorvo and Pico, roughly a third of the way from Cassino to the sea. This week the fast-advancing French threw a block on the five-mile road between them, went to work to take both towns.

On the South Flank. In terms of miles, U.S. troops made the biggest gains. From Minturno on the south of the line one column pushed into the little mountain town of Spigno, found only rear-guard Germans there. Another column pounded along the coast to the town of Formia.

Nearly all the Germans had pulled out. They were gone, too, from Gaeta. The troops, watched by Lieut. General Mark Clark (who narrowly escaped being blown up by an exploding land mine), then pushed on into Itri and Fondi. This week U.S. patrols fought into Terracina, were thrown out, waited to fight their way back when the main bodies came up.

In the Rear Areas. Apparently the smashup of German communications by Allied airmen, before the push began, had worked a change in the Germans' will and ability to fight in their most competent fashion. There was also a well-grounded suspicion among U.S. officers that Field Marshal Kesselring may have been outwitted to boot.

One of his Orders of the Day, captured by Allied troops, told the Germans to be ready for an attack on May 24 (it began on May 11). Another instance of bad intelligence: Kesselring showered Polish-language propaganda leaflets on Indian troops, English leaflets on Poles.

In spite of all these favorable circumstances, Allied troops suffered heavy casualties at some points on the line. But on the whole, the Allied Command announced, casualties were much lighter than expected. Conversely the signs of tactical surprise among German front-line troops were greater than anyone had hoped. By week's end the Allies had taken 6,000 Axis prisoners. Considering the proved military quality of the German outfits, it was a fat bag, indicated that some divisions may have been shot apart so badly that they could no longer function as units.

The Newest Allies. One clear reason for the spectacular Allied advance was the heroic determination of the troops Hitler had to stop. Almost unanimously, correspondents picked as their fighting favorites the French troops--Moroccan Goums, Senegalese infantrymen and Algerian riflemen serving under French officers and noncoms. Some of them had actually fought on opposite sides in the Fighting French-Vichy squabbles in Syria three years ago.

Their General Alphonse Pierre Juin and his high-ranking associates also took the eyes of true soldiers. Said a U.S. tank commander of one daring French brigadier general: "Look at him--right up at the front. They are all that way--goddam emotional but they go right up there with their men."

Watching the businesslike French Colonials fearlessly scale a steep hill in the face of heavy German machine-gun fire, a U.S. artillery major said: "God! If everybody had the heart to fight the way these Frenchmen do!"

Other Allied superiorities were the quality of air support--over 20,000 missions in the first ten days of fighting--and the most deadly layout of artillery Italy had yet seen.

Those Guns. German prisoners told officers of a veteran South Carolina National Guard regiment, serving with the French, that the big guns were more terrible than the artillery they had faced at Stalingrad. Broadcasting from Italy, CBS Correspondent Eric Sevareid said:

"Our massive mobile artillery simply smothers the Germans every time they get set. It is most impressive to stand in a town which the Germans have just left and see our great 8-in. howitzers already rumbling through the rubble right on the heels of the Germans. Their artillery is very, very good; but ours is very, very numerous."

In spite of these items of superiority, the German retreat had not turned to panic. But if Alexander's plans worked right there would be wholesale disruption before the campaign was over. Shorn of his supply system, menaced by the forces on the beachhead, pushed by troops who had finally broken a humiliating stalemate, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring had trouble on his hands.

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