With the Liri valley opened, and Anzio relieved, Fifth Army drove on Rome, while Eighth Army fanned out into Central Italy. The enemy had no alternative to a long retreat. Any defence system covering the capital could be pierced or by-passed. With Rome lost, it was sound strategy to shorten communications and to fall back on terrain where natural obstacles would assist the defenders. The Germans therefore withdrew northwards for two hundred and twenty-five miles. The retreat which began at Roccasecca on May 25th ended on June 18th at Ripa Ridge.
Throughout this period Eighth Indian Division remained in the van of the chase, harrying the enemy with a persistence which bore handsome dividends in the form of casualties inflicted, prisoners taken and equipment captured. The pursuit began auspiciously. On May 27th after the fall of Roccasecca, a mobile force of 6th Lancers, 3/8 Punjabis and New Zealand tanks caught up with the enemy in the gorge of the Melfa Valley, north of Route 6. At a blown bridge the column fell upon a rearguard, killing 25 Germans and taking 14 prisoners. An observer reported:
“The famed German paratroopers ran pell-mell, scrambling over rocks and diving into shelters as we came upon the scene. Some put up a weak show of resistance, but others surrendered at once. Famished prisoners pocketed their pride and asked for food. They marched back munching biscuits past the huge German cemetery at Roccasecca.”
This incursion into the hills took the Indians out of the Liri Valley and off the main axis of advance. This circumstance was turned to advantage when Sixth British Armoured Division, closing on Arce at the top of the valley, was held up. 17th Brigade passed through 19th Brigade, sent one group on a detour to the north as a feint, and attacked the features covering Arce from the east. Royal Fusiliers and 1/5 Gurkhas, supported by New Zealand tanks, stormed Frajoli on the evening of May 27th. Stiff fighting cost the enemy approximately 100 riflemen from One Hundred and Fourteenth Jaeger Division. On the next day, 1/12 Frontier Force Regiment attacked Monte Pavone, a commanding feature which covered the approach to Arce. One and a half companies of German paratroopers stood at bay on the crest of the peak. Subedar Sadhu Singh’s Sikhs were pinned down as they tried to close. After tremendous efforts, the New Zealanders
worked their tanks three-quarters of the way up the mountainside. They fired at the trees over the enemy positions in order to obtain air bursts whose shrapnel might reach the Germans in their slit trenches. The paratroopers, who were dug in on the reverse slopes, destroyed themselves through over-confidence. Perceiving the Indians to be comparatively few in numbers, they sprang to their feet and charged up the hillside. The Sikhs for an instant were astounded by such foolhardiness; as one man they rose with their war cry of “Sat siri akal!” and leapt to meet their assailants. It was bayonet to bayonet, and the paratroopers were outmatched. They broke and ran. The Sikhs swept forward to seize the enemy positions, capturing a number of prisoners, including a German officer with two bayonet wounds.
Consequent upon this success, 21st Brigade passed through and occupied positions immediately above Arce. Next morning (May 29th) 1/5 Gurkhas and elements of Sixth British Armoured Division entered the town. It was a local fiesta day, celebrated to commemorate a wandering Englishman who had become patron saint of the town in the Middle Ages. The arrival of British troops on such a day was particularly felicitous. The Indian brigades had now reached the gorge of the Liri, where it turns into the north-east towards its source near Avezzano. It was necessary to bridge the river in three places, a delay which enabled the Germans to extricate themselves from the too close attentions of their pursuers. 6/13 Frontier Force Rifles and a squadron of 6th Lancers followed the retreating enemy up Route 82, towards Sora, where enemy anti-tank guns blocked the road. It would have been impossible to dislodge the enemy without casualties had not a Spitfire spotted the holdup, and forced the Germans into cover with series of dummy dives. With the gun crews off guard, the Lancers rushed the position, inflicting 40 casualties.
19th Brigade, also with Lancers and tanks, had struck across country to the left with a view to harassing the flank of one of the main lines of retreat. On approaching Veroli, about ten miles west of the Liri, an enemy rearguard several hundred strong was encountered. 6th Lancers were ambushed losing three armoured cars and their crews. A sharp little action followed, in which intervention by another lone fighter bomber helped greatly. On the morning of June 2nd, Frontier Force Rifles cleared Veroli. The Indians were now veering back towards the axis of advance of the Sixth British Armoured Division. To avoid confusion it was necessary to keep to the right of Via Macerosa, the main north-bound highway. This entailed a certain amount of road making, but did not materially slow up the pursuit. 21st Indian Infantry Brigade, with 18th New Zealand Armoured Regiment attached, became the spearhead of the Division, and moved north on Guarcino through the hills, where the road described a right-angled bend
to the west, along the lower haunches of Monte Agnelo. For once the Germans were stupid in their dispositions for defence. Their rearguards had dug in on the slopes of the mountain immediately above the town, in full view of 1/5 Mahrattas across the valley. When the weapons of the Indians were emplaced, no German could move on the hillside without being sniped. Divisional mortar teams had a field day, and plastered the German positions while the infantry cleared Guarcino. Forty shell-shocked members of Fifth Mountain Division surrendered, and as many more were killed, for the loss of one Mahratta.
The capture of German demolition squads at Guarcino revealed no road wrecking to have been accomplished before Subiaco, fifteen miles ahead. On June 5th, in order to facilitate the pursuit, Eighth Indian Division was transferred from Thirteenth to Tenth Corps. This shift ended a happy association with New Zealand armoured regiments. On the infantry’s call the Kiwi tank men would go anywhere, and would undertake any task. Neither sheer slopes nor boulders nor deep gullies deterred them; in one fashion or another they barged and squirmed up the mountain sides. If the ground proved impossible, their bulldozers hurried forward to clear the way. When not in action they reconstructed or improved the mountain tracks and roads.
Eighth Division now entered wilder and more mountainous country. Many escaped prisoners of war who had hidden away among the upland farms began to come in. 19th Brigade covered the 15 miles to Subiaco in two days. At the entrance to the town a bridge which crossed a chasm had been blown. The enemy apparently regarded this demolition as a major obstacle, but Frontier Force Rifles, having brought up a mule train, swung into the hills and entered Subiaco from the north, trapping the rearguard. Once again German engineering squads were among the captures, and another fifteen miles of road was discovered to be free of demolitions.
Rome fell, and the pursuit swept on. At Arsoli, the next market town north of Subiaco, Eighth Division wheeled into the west and cleared the countryside as far as Tivoli, a summer resort fifteen miles east of the capital. Sixth British Armoured Division debouched from Rome on the western bank of the Tiber, and worked into the north on the axis of Via Flamina, the main road to Perugia. 17th Brigade, after relieving elements of Fourth British Division on the opposite bank of the Tiber, hurried on. The pace steadily quickened. On June 14th, 6th Lancers and 3/15 Punjabis swept into Terni, an important road junction, rounding up prisoners who had last heard of the Indians at Fara, 25 miles down the road. Divisional sappers had been over-worked during the rapid advance, opening tracks and clearing minefields. Engineers from 25th Army Tank Brigade now arrived to relieve them of the task of bridging the Nera at Terni. No one knows quite how it came about, but an argument between the new arrivals and their
supposedly exhausted colleagues led to both parties working side by side throughout the night, with the result that the bridge was completed twelve hours ahead of schedule.
The constant harassing began to tell on the enemy. As the lovely Umbrian countryside unrolled, with its gentle contours and heavy cultivation, the advance screen of reconnaissance cars and light tanks gave the retreating Germans no rest. Persistent encroachment upset the rearguards, who on more than one occasion scattered in disorder, their missions unfulfilled. The enemy demolition sappers in particular slipped up badly. Mines often were obviously and hurriedly sown. Ammunition and supply dumps were unexploded or unburned – a sure sign of demoralization. German back area formations were rounded up while still at work, unaware of the approach of their enemies. A characteristic fat take was the bag of Frontier Force Rifles on June 16th, which included 250 prisoners, a tank, 2 guns, a considerable number of motor vehicles, and a yard of horses complete with saddlery. As the thrustful Indians forced the pace the roads became strewn with an endless litter of abandoned equipment.
The long retreat finally drew to a close. On June 17th, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders approached Assisi, historic birthplace of St. Francis, its massive monasteries arrayed along the shoulders of the mountain. Machine-gun posts on the outskirts compelled the Scotsmen to deploy and to attack in pouring rain through the vineyards and olive groves which skirted the town. 6th Lancers raced for Bastia, where the main highway crosses the Chiascio river. There they ran into trouble, for the bridge was blown, and anti-tank guns covering the demolition destroyed three armoured cars. On the far bank the enemy stood. 3/8 Punjabis moved up to deal with what appeared to be a tricky obstacle. PIATS were worked forward until they could crash their bombs into the weapon pits on the opposite bank; thereafter, arraying all available tanks and anti-tank guns in a semicircle at point blank range, the German positions were blasted. That night, three companies of Punjabis crossed the river and seized the airfield, while 6th Lancers worked down a lateral road to make contact with Sixth British Armoured Division at Torgiano, on the Tiber. Here again, anti-tank guns gave trouble, and four armoured cars were lost.
Four miles ahead, Perugia, serene and unscarred, stood on a gracious swell above the countryside. Ten miles west of the Umbrian capital the blue bowl of Lake Trasimeno, gleamed in a fairy landscape. To the north of the lake the Apennine massif became more substantial, with ruggeder slopes and higher crests. The Tiber Valley narrowed and deepened; steep and wooded slopes stretched upwards to the dominating ridges. The river was fed by a multitude of small and rapid streams, each in its own gashed ravine. Roads were few. Here was natural terrain for defence, ideally suited to the German strategy of selling
ground at a high price before withdrawing to lay-back positions where such tactics might be re-enacted.
To the east of Perugia an escarpment marked the beginning of the rough country. A ridge rising to a height of one thousand feet extended for five miles between the Tiber and Chiascio rivers. The villages of Ripa and Civitella stood upon its crest, the former giving the ridge its name. In Civitella a prominent tower afforded observation for miles around.
During the afternoon of June 18th, 1/5 Gurkhas, supported by two troops of North Irish Horse, attacked the escarpment opposite Civitella. German bazooka men lying up in the village cemetery destroyed two of the Irishmen’s tanks. At 0400 hours next morning the village was reported as captured and consolidated. After daybreak the Gurkhas attempted to work along the ridge towards Ripa village. As soon as the advance began, heavy shelling and mortaring revealed the presence of substantial enemy forces. German guns knocked out three tanks which reconnoitred too rashly. The enemy shoot on Civitella increased in intensity, and at 1030 hours a counter attack of approximately company strength developed from across the Tiber. The German concentrations had been observed, and the assault broke down under accurate defensive fire. At 1100 hours with Civitella secure, “D” Company of the Gurkhas supported by tanks and artillery, worked in on Ripa village. (An odd sight during this assault was Major Charles, forward observation officer, directing his guns from the top of a stepladder in the firing line, under pelting rain). Well prepared positions blocked all approaches, but as the Gurkhas felt their way around them the rearguards fled precipitately.
Simultaneously Royal Fusiliers advanced against the ridge position above the Chiascio river. At 1530 hours the leading company ran into concentrated machine-gun fire, one thousand yards south-east of its objective. The Company Commander was killed, and all other officers became casualties. Persevering, the Fusiliers worked up on the right of the Gurkhas, took over Ripa village, and reorganized the sector. During this consolidation Major Morland-Hughes, M.B.E., M.C., commanding the Gurkhas, who led his battalion in the bitter Mozzagrogna fighting, was mortally wounded – a great loss to his men and to the Division.
With Ripa ridge secured, 17th Brigade pushed on. 1/12 Frontier Force Regiment worked forward between Civitella and Ripa. A company of the Gurkhas crossed River Grande, a tributary of the Tiber, assailing the high ground on the northern bank. The enemy instantly reacted to this incursion, and the Gurkhas encountered such venomous opposition that they withdrew that evening. Frontier Force Regiment, however, had made good progress, and next day it was decided to re-cross the river. After darkness fell, “B” Company of the Gurkhas
once more forded the stream, infiltrated on to the high ground, and established a bridgehead. Again the enemy struck back promptly and vigorously; lorried infantry and motor-cycle machine-gunners charged the intruders. This attack failed to win home, and morning broke on a noisy scene as enemy artillery softened up the Gurkha positions. That afternoon a second enemy counter-attack swept up; the Germans retrieved some ground only to lose it when the reserve company of Gurkhas raced into action. Concurrently, 1/12 Frontier Force Regiment had probed forward until securely ensconced on Belvedere Ridge, a long feature formerly used by the enemy for artillery observation. Attempts to throw back the Frontiersmen were broken up by prompt and accurate curtains of defensive fire.
This series of sharp little actions was proving expensive. Already 17th Brigade had lost half as many men as in the great battle of the Gari. Relief was overdue, for Eighth Indian Division had been fighting steadily with little real rest since the previous November. It was known that Tenth Indian Division was on its way to take over, but General Russell and his men were loath to relinquish the front, as one of his officers put it, “without dotting the Hun one for all the nuisances he had committed”. On June 23rd, 3rd King’s Own Hussars replaced North Irish Horse as the 17th Brigade’s tank regiment, and it was decided to sally once more into the upland ground which had been defended so obstinately. This farewell attack succeeded brilliantly. In a single bound the Hussars carried Piccione, five miles north of Ripa, caught the enemy by surprise and wrought havoc. Two hundred Germans were killed, 50 mules captured, and 1100 guns destroyed. Gurkhas, Royal Fusiliers and Royal West Kents followed up to consolidate. Bitter fighting occurred at Columbella, where it was necessary to withdraw the West Kents and to beat up the area with artillery before the ground could be held. The enemy bared his teeth at every attempt to infiltrate, and the situation was still involved when the advance parties from Tenth Indian Division arrived.
After eight and a half months of continuous slogging, Eighth Indian Division was relieved and went out to rest. Seldom has any formation won more laurels in its first campaign.
This collection transcribed by Chris Gage