Battle of San Pietro Infine

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(For the John Huston film about this battle, see The Battle of San Pietro.)

The Liri valley with Mt. Sambùcaro overlooking the modern town of San Pietro Infine (left) and ruins of the original town (center).

Date	Dec 8, 1943 – Dec 17, 1943
Location	San Pietro Infine, Italy
Result	Allied victory

Combatants

Commanders

Italian Campaign
Invasion of Sicily – Invasion of Italy – Armistice with Italy – Winter Line – San Pietro – Anzio – Monte Cassino – Gothic Line

The Battle of San Pietro Infine (commonly referred to as the "Battle of San Pietro") was a major engagement from 8-17 December, 1943, in the Italian Campaign of WWII involving Allied Forces attacking from the south up the Liri Valley against heavily fortified positions of the German "Winter Line" in and around the town of San Pietro Infine, just south of Monte Cassino about halfway between Naples and Rome. The eventual Allied victory in the battle was crucial in the ultimate drive to the north to liberate Rome. The original town of San Pietro Infine was destroyed in the battle; the modern, rebuilt town of the same name is located a few hundred meters away (41" 26' 40 N lat., 13" 57' 31 E long.).

1 Background
2 The battle
3 See also
4 References
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Background

The Allied invasion of Italy from the south was the outcome of the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign. That invasion started November 8, 1942 and was labeled Operation Torch. The Allies planned a three-pronged amphibious landing to seize the key ports and airports of Morocco and Algeria simultaneously, targeting Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. By May of 1943, the Axis forces in Africa had surrendered. The Germans retreated to the island of Sicily and on the night of 9-10 July 1943, an Allied armada of 2,590 vessels launched one of the largest combined operations of World War II— the invasion of Sicily. Over the next five weeks, half a million Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen fought German and Italian forces for control of the island. Although the Allied powers were victorious, the Axis managed to evacuate over 100,000 men and 10,000 vehicles from Sicily across the Straits of Messina during the first seventeen days in August. The failure of Allied air and naval forces to prevent that evacuation resulted in the Axis armies then being able to stage a careful and methodical withdrawal up the Italian mainland, proving costly for the invading Allied armies. The Allies then invaded the Italian mainland in September 1943 at Salerno with diversionary landings in Calabria (Operation Baytown) and Taranto (Operation Slapstick).

On September 8, before the main invasion, the surrender of Italy to the Allies was announced. Italian units ceased combat, and the Italian navy sailed to Allied ports to surrender. This changed the German defensive strategy greatly, and the Germans now regarded their former allies as enemies and moved to disarm Italian units and occupy important defensive positions. The invasion at Salerno was ultimately successful and Allied forces took nearby Naples on October 1. German forces then withdrew to the north towards Rome and dug in along a series of well-fortified lines near Monte Cassino and San Pietro Infine. This was to be their "Winter Line".

[edit] The battle

Allied assault on and through the first segment of the German Winter Line at San Pietro Infine, at center of map.

The bombed-out center of the town of San Pietro Infine.

The battle for San Pietro was preparatory to the well-known Battle of Monte Cassino, which started on January 17, 1944. German commander, General Albert Kesselring had marked out the "Winter Line" as three parallel defensive systems to the south of Rome, all centered on Monte Cassino. The defensives lines were called the Reinhard Line, Gustav Line and Hitler Line, placed 18 kilometres one from the other, taking advantage of the point at which the Italian Peninsula is narrowest; they served as a formidable series of obstacles in the path of the Allied march towards Rome. The Reinhard was the southernmost of the three and was the German fall-back position from the Barbara Line and Volturno Line further to the south as German forces retreated gradually up the peninsula. (The Reinhard was also called the Bernhardt Line.) The Reinhard was actually a southern bulge in the stronger Gustav line to the north. On the eastern side, the Reinhard went from the Sangro River to the Adriatic Sea (along which length it was identical to the Gustav Line); then, in the west, it bulged south from Cassino to incorporate the mountains overlooking the approaches to the Liri Valley and then moved west to the mouth of the Garigliano River. The line passed directly through the hillside town of San Pietro Infine, blocking Allied entrance into the Liri valley along Highway 6, the main road up the center of Italy from Naples to Rome.

The Germans occupied San Pietro in September, 1943, to prepare the defenses. They evacuated all non-essential Italians from the town, meaning women, children and old men; they conscripted able-bodied men to help set up the defenses and requisitioned available vehicles and beasts of burden^[1]. They set up a defensive apparatus in the whole territory, in particular on Mount Sambúcaro ^[2] and Mount Lungo, above the approaches to the Liri Valley. These were strategically important positions because they allowed the control of the long stretch of route 6, important for the advance of the Allies. The Fifth Army began to attack the Reinhard/Bernhardt Line on 5 November 1943, and the attacks continued into December.

The Battle of San Pietro was preceded by Allied attacks on the Camino hill mass at the entrance into the Liri Valley through the Mignano Gap (named for the small town on the road at that point). The entire hill mass is about 10 km long and 6 km wide. After that, the main Allied effort was against the German defenses on Mount Sambùcaro and Mount Lungo, which dominated the narrow valley on the east and west, respectively. As a point of historical interest, the assault on Mount Lungo was aided by the 1st Italian Motorized Group^[3], part of the recently reconstituted Italian army, now fighting on the side of the Allies. The direct attack on the German positions in and around San Pietro began on December 8 by II Corps of the Fifth Army. The positions were defended by two battalions of the XIV Panzer Corps, part of the German Tenth Army.

After a week of intense attacks and counter-attacks the Allies commanded the heights of the Sambùcaro mass. The US 36th Division then planned a further effort to capture Mount Lungo and San Pietro by 15 December. The main attack of the 36th Division started at 1200 on 15 December, with San Pietro as the objective. After four successive Allied attacks and German counter-attacks, the Germans pulled back from San Pietro since the dominating ground on both flanks, Mount Lungo and the Sambùcaro peaks, was now in II Corps' possession. The Germans launched a counter-attack on December 27 to cover their withdrawal as they retreated to positions farther north at Cedro Hill, Mount Porchia, San Vittore, and the western spurs of Sambúcaro. ^[4]

The Battle of San Pietro was part of the overall campaign to breach the Bernhardt/Reinhard Line, some ten kilometers (six miles) deep at that point. It took six weeks of heavy fighting--from early November to late December--to overcome the German defenses. During that time, the Fifth Army sustained 16,000 casualties^[5]. The highway through the Liri Valley from the Mignano Gap just before Mount Lungo and leading to San Pietro Infine was nicknamed "Death Valley" by members of the attacking force. The battle destroyed the town of San Pietro Infine completely. Destruction was wrought by a combination of close combat, both Allied and German mortar and artillery, and German "scorched earth" policy. Both the battle and the plight of the civilian population have inspired numerous accounts, most famous of which is the John Huston film The Battle of San Pietro.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

D'Este, Carlo, Fatal Decision: Anzio and the Battle for Rome. 1991 ISBN 0-06-092148-X
Fifth Army at the Winter Line (15 November 1943-15 January 1944). Center of Military History, United States Army. (1990) . First printed in 1945 by the Historical Division, War Department, for the American Forces in Action series, 1945. CMH Pub 100-9.
Grigg, John, 1943: The Victory that Never Was. ISBN 0-8217-1596-8
Majdalany, Fred (1957). Cassino: Portrait of a Battle. Longman, Green & Co Ltd., London.
Muhm, Gerhard : La Tattica tedesca nella Campagna d'Italia, in Linea Gotica avanposto dei Balcani, (Hrsg.) Amedeo Montemaggi - Edizioni Civitas, Roma 1993.
Zambardi, Maurizio (2006). War Memories; The ordeal of the civilians of San Pietro Infine during the Second World War. CDSC publications. Cassino.
Col. Kenneth V. Smith (1944). CMH Online bookshelves: WWII Campaigns, Naples-Foggia 9 September 1943-21 January 1944. Washington: US Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 72-17.

[edit] Notes

^ Zambardi, pp. 18-21.
^ This name usually appears as "Sammucro" on Allied military maps of the period.
^ Fifth Army at the Winter Line, p.47
^ Fifth Army at the Winter Line, p. 65.
^ Majdalany. p.30