Kesselring strikes back
Montgomerys cautious advance was promptly exploited by Kesselring to transfer troops. He withdrew the 26. Panzer and the 29.Panzergrenadier divisions from the British front and positioned them to the right flank of the U.S. bridgehead. He summoned the 3. Panzergrenadier Division as well as the 2.Paratrooper Division which had freshly arrived from Rome, and positioned them to protect his left flank. He placed the remainder of the division "Hermann Göring" and the 15. Panzergrenadier Division in the centre, where the danger was the greatest for the Germans.
Clark, who already felt he was a winner on the battlefield, was within the next hours made to feel the full force and violence of German units in the counterattack. Altavilla was soon lost and the Sele valley turned into a graveyard for American tanks. The tobacco factory at Persano was particularly hotly disputed. On 13 September Colonel General von Vietinghoff who commanded the Salerno front, reported he was close to throwing the Americans back into the sea. Clark was on the point of giving up and had already formulated orders for the destruction of landed supplies. 15 German Panzer Mk. IV tanks reached the bridge at the river Calore at 1830hrs, from where it was only a further seven kilometres to the beach.
The Luftwaffe also intervened in the fighting. Within the first three days of the invasion there were 100 sorties of German bombers and more than 450 fighter and fighter-bomber sorties. The Luftflotte 2 (Second Air Fleet) sank four freighters, a heavy cruiser, seven landing vehicles and obtained a further 85 hits on other allied ships. The Luftwaffe made use for the first time of remote controlled glider bombs, which was the highlight of the Luftwaffe attacks. The HS 293 glider bomb, developed by the Henschel company, was launched from a Dornier Do 217 well beyond the reach of enemy flak. First it went into a glide, then the rocket engine ignited and glider bomb was then guided by radio control to the target. The attacks and hits on the U.S. cruiser Savannah and the British battleship HMS Warspite historically mark the first successful use of guided missiles.
Clark is only saved by the swift action of 158th and 179th Artillery Batteries which effectively engage the Sele valley and the panzers. In the evening only the deployment of 2,500 paratroopers of the 82nd U.S. Airborne division who jump into the beachhead area as immediate reserve stabilizes the situation.
On 14 and 15 September the Germans attack further. But the ruthless use of heavy naval gunfire and the increasing air superiority of the Allies engage every panzer which moves and take it under heavy fire. Kesselring gives up. The Germans organize an orderly retreat behind the Reinhard position at the river Volturno and leave a devastated Naples to the British and Americans.
Allied morale rose greatly. The general belief was it would be possible to take Rome by the second half of October. But the German army and the topography continually caused great difficulties for Clark’s and Montgomery’s troops. The Germans wanted to use every hour to improve the Gustav Line, a defence line that ran from the gulf of Gaeta up to the Adriatic Sea off the mouth of the river Sangro. From November 15 until January 15 the Americans succeeded in gaining an area of only 15 km. The British managed even less as they were cautious of incurring further heavy losses. Within the next few weeks the German supreme command organized the transfer of 15 divisions under the command of General Heinrich von Vietinghoff. Kesselring, the newly appointed commander of the Italian Army Group C, estimated the strength of his opponents to be three times as great as his own and allied firepower to be ten times that of the Germans. Allies strength included the British Eighth. Army consisting of twelve British, Canadian, New Zealand and Polish divisions. To this a Greek brigade was added. The 5. Army consisted of four U.S. and Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian and French units in addition.
In the evening of December 2nd 1943 more than 30 allied ships were in the port of Bari waiting to be unloaded. To accelerate the works the entire port was illuminated, an open invitation to the Luftwaffe. Ninety six Ju 88s of the I. and II. Groups of KG 54 (Kampfgeschwader/Squadron)) as well as the I. and II. Groups of KG 76 took off from the airfields Villaorba and Aviano. No enemy flak and no fighters disturbed the German bombers on their approach to Bari. The first bombs fell at 1930hrs. One of the most successful attacks of the entire war was about to happen. With the exception of Pearl Harbour never were so many ships sunk. Altogether, 19 freighters and tankers went down with a total displacement of 73,343 tons. Seven more were damaged. Two ammunition freighters exploded simultaneously and all windows were shattered within a twelve kilometre radius. Over 1000 sailors and dockers lost their lives. The sinking of the "SS John Harvey” was kept secret for decades. The freighter had 100 tons of mustard gas in heavy bombs loaded on board along with 45.5 kg of conventional ammunition. A number of the bombs, although without fuzes, burst and the poison spread out throughout the basin where many people already were. Since nobody knew about the poison, nobody was able to take adequate countermeasures. Only 12 hours after the accident was the mustard gas situation recognized as such. 83 people died of the consequences. The port of Bari was out of action for long time.
