Evening star., 1943-09-17
Victory at SuIerno

Both the tone and the content OF
Lieutenant General Clarks order of
the day leave no room for doubt that
the Fifth Army, in five days of savage
fighting, has secured its beachhead
at Salerno. After absorbing the
enemy's heaviest blows, the Allied
troops have gone over to the offensive
and have pushed the Germans back
as much as eight miles in some sec
tors. This means that we have sur
vived the crisis that is inevitable in
any resisted landing operations, the
crisis that comes when the defending
forces counterattack during the in
terval between the initial troop land
ings and the bringing up of heavy
equipment and reinforcements. But,
as was the case with the Seventh
Army at Sicily, the Fifth Army has
met this test successfully at Salerno.
The victory, judging from latest
reports, may be attributed to four
things. First, the courage and splen-
did fighting qualities of the troops
that were put ashore in the early
landings. The Germans threw every
thing they had against these men,
but they dug in and took it"
throughout four days of terrific
fighting. The second factor was the
successful landing of reinforcements,
heavy equipment and supplies in the
face of Furnishing fire from German
artillery emplaced in the hills back.
of the beachhead. A third factor
was the effective support given the
troops by naval forces. The 15-inch
shells from the British battleships,
Valiant and Warspite, and the fire
of lighter vessels tended to Offset the
artillery advantage enjoyed by the
Germans, and probably contributed
in no small measure to the successful
landing of reinforcements. Finally,
there was the magnificent work of
the Northwest African Air Force,
which flew 1000 offensive Sorties on
the day before the opening of the
final Allied attack. Operating from
relatively distant bases, the Flying
FortresseS, Marauders, Mitchells,
Wellingtons, Lightnings, Spitfires and
Warhawks-to mention some but not
all of the types of planes involved
bombed and strafed the German
positions throughout the day. This
bombardment, coupled with the
naval fire, undoubtedly played an
important part in breaking down the
stubborn German resistance.
AS matters stand, we may expect
that the Battle of Salerno will soon
turn into the Battle for Naples. The
British Eighth Army is moving up
rapidly from the south, and should
effect a junction with General Clark's
troops in the next day or so. Then,
presumably, the combined force will
launch an offensive against the vital
port city.
The fighting at Salerno has shown,
however, that there will be no easy
road to final victory in Italy. General
Clark, apparently rebuking some of
the more pessimistic accounts of the
early Allied setback at Salerno, says
that "our situation was never des-
perate." But he does not hide. the
fact that the Allied troops had hard
going" and that they had to fight for
every inch of ground gained. The
Germans can and probably will con-
tinue to offer the most determined
resistance in Italy, and there will be
fewer disappointments at home if we
put aside all thoughts of quick and
easy victory. The chances are that
the Allied forces will meet with local
defeats and a great deal of the
hardest kind of fighting before the
last German soldier is driven out Of
the peninsula.
The victory at Salerno, after all,
is only the secure establishment of
a beachhead The real fight comes
next.