The first laurels went to Patton and the US Army. They had landed and driven 60 kilometers to Cagliari, half way across the island, while during the same four days, Monty had gone a third that distance, and was still heavily engaged 10 klicks north of Oristano. The Canadians had made excellent progress on the left, but just when it seemed that the German line was breaking, more reinforcements arrived. KG Keyser moved into the small town of Bonarcado to shore up that flank, and the rest of the 190th Division was now mustering near Abbasanta behind the main line of resistance.
When he heard Patton was in Cagliari, Montgomery turned to a nearby aide. “As usual,” he said, “Patton is gallivanting about while we take on the Germans.”
“But General,” said the aide. “He was only carrying out your plan. True?” At that, Monty smiled, but ‘Gallivanting’ would not be half a word for what Patton would do next.
Chapter 29
The landings on Sardinia had done more than many realized to affect the general morale of the homeland. Instead of bolstering it, and instilling a fervor to defend the sacred soil of Italy, it had the opposite effect. The Italians now saw their position in the Axis as completely untenable. Though Mussolini attempted to shore up the will of his regime and nation to resist, he stumbled in his last important public speech.
“The enemy must play his card,” said Mussolini. He has proclaimed high and low that he will invade the continent… otherwise he will face defeat even before fighting. Clearly this attempt will fail…. As soon as the enemy attempts to land, he will be frozen at the line the sailors call il Bagnasciuga, that line in the sand where the water stops and the land begins…. Having an iron, unshakable, and granite will, the Fascists will prevail.”
Many listening on the radio looked at one another with a bemused expression, and some laughed when the dictator said this. For il Bagnasciuga was not the line in the sand as Mussolini believed, but the water line on the hull of a ship. The word he should have used was battigia.
Something was clearly wrong with Il Duce. He had been suffering from abdominal pain for months, was often bedridden, and now he seemed to be off in his head. News of the landing on Sardinia was closely watched by the homeland population, and Mussolini’s boastful words were put to rout, even as his soldiers were when Patton took Cagliari. The general populace could not help but notice that the only defensive front that was holding the line on the island was the area occupied by German troops.
For months, powerful forces had been circling the King, Emmanuel III, and pressing him to sanction a change of government. One Dino Grande, an intelligent and influential aristocrat, was the former Ambassador to the UK, well known to Churchill himself. Disenchanted with Mussolini, and believing that Fascism had run its course, he secretly, then openly, pressed for change. He had long opposed Italy’s entry into the war, and now his warnings of disaster seemed to be vindicated. It was largely his organization and planning that would soon lead to the fall of Mussolini’s Fascist regime, and the headlines Patton would make in the days ahead served to fan the flames of that entire process. A clock was ticking, the second hand harried on with every mile that Patton would gain in what would now become an unbridled romp through southern and central Sardinia.
The 90th Panzergrenadier division had finally arrived in full, and every gain achieved by Montgomery was put in check with a fresh battalion coming to the front at just the right moment. Yet now the Germans had concentrated all their best troops in one area, two divisions opposing three under Montgomery.
The first regiment of Student’s paratroopers had landed, but with little in the way of transport, von Senger decided to leave them in the north to prepare defenses where the island narrowed towards La Maddalena. With Allied air units now operating from Sardinia, bringing in the rest of the division by air transport was risky, so it was decided to move it by sea from La Spezia—but to Corsica instead of Sardinia. Von Senger was already hedging his bets. The chips he had on the table looked good at the moment, but his fortunes could reverse at a moment’s breath.
Speaking with General Basso, he began to plan the defense in the north, asking the Italians to move the Calabria Division from its current post around Sassari, to the island’s Capitol at Nuoro. Aside from the retreating 203rd Coastal Division, there was nothing on that side of the island to stop the Americans if they pushed north in earnest. The Calabria Division would move by rail on the night of the 20th of June, even as the final cabinet meeting of the Fascist Regime was taking place in Italy, where Mussolini would get heavy pressure to find a way to exit the war.
It was only a matter of time now before von Senger would have to order a general retreat to the north. While his line was holding, it had several liabilities. The Allied navy had returned, and they were pounding the western segment of the line near the coast, aiding the enemy’s strongest attack being put in by the 1st Canadian Division. Secondly, all of the 3rd Division had now come up from the south, and it was attempting to flank the position in the higher country to the east.
Thirdly, there was Patton, moving without rest in the south and assembling task forces with his swift moving armored cav and mechanized infantry units. The ‘Goat Trails’ he had complained about were still usable for these tracked vehicles, narrow roads that would still allow him to move quickly north. The last straw on this camel’s back was the fact that the Allies still had an almost unlimited pool of resources to draw from in North Africa. The British 4th Mixed Division was the next in line to deploy, already boarding the ships for Cagliari.
The Luftwaffe had tried, unsuccessfully, to interdict that port from Palermo, Trapani, and Marsala on the western tip of Sicily, but those fields were quite far off, 325 kilometers in the case of Trapani, and 380 for Palermo. Even the Allied fields at Bizerte and Tunis were closer.
The Allies had their first functioning port on Italian soil, and the Luftwaffe could not do anything about that, now or in any foreseeable future. What was once air superiority for the Allies, was rapidly becoming Air supremacy, and this was going to make a major difference in the conduct of all these operations.
On the 21st Patton was already 30 klicks north of Cagliari, moving the 1st infantry up towards Monty’s right, and sending his armored spearheads to the east coast. There was little resistance as they advanced, but north of Capo Bellavista, the coast road turned inland and began to climb into the more rugged country that is the Orosei and Gennargentu National Park today, heavily wooded country with very few roads. It was here that the retreating Italians would attempt to set up blocking positions, cutting down trees and using any explosives they had to clog up the narrow roadways with rocks and tree trunks.
“We’ve got only two roads worth the name there,” said Bradley. “One is state Route 69, through this high country here. It twists and turns like a snake. The other is through this heavy woodland farther east, and both are hell on earth for armor.”
“General Truscott,” said Patton. “If I rustle up some landing craft, what do you say to a little end around to flank that position by hitting the coast further north?”
“Well,” said Truscott. “The most we could lift would be a few battalions. Don’t forget the enemy still has subs in the Tyrrhenian Sea. How long would they be out there? It could take days for us to push through those mountains. What if the Germans come down from the north? Those boys could be chopped up on that coastline.”