The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-11-21

General Marshall's report on the
 winning of World War IT.
 K
 INFRINGEMENT IN ITALY
 General Eisenhower and his ground force commander General Alexander, fully anticipated that they were in for a heavy fight at the foot of the Italian boot. They had estimated that eight German divisions were available to oppose the landings. Two were in and north of Rome. The Hermann Goering Panzer Division and the 18th Mo- torized Division were in the Naples area, and four more first-class divi- sions (the 16th and 26th Pan1er, 29th Motorized, and lst Parachute) were south of Naples. The enemy forces in the south were heavy in armor, General Alexander. on the other hand, had to lodge assault infantry on the mainland first. The shortage of shipping made 1t im- possible for him to bring his own heavy armor into the fight until the British 7th Armored Division started to unload on D-5. A fur ther handicap was the necessity of making large forces available for the OVERLORD build-up at this time. The U. s. 1st and 9th Divi- sions and 2d Armored Division which had fought in Sicily were al- ready staging for their movement to the United Kingdom. Later the 82d Airbone Division was withdrawn from the fighting at Salerno and sent to Britain.
 The narrow margin on which we were compelled to allocate our resources so that Germany might be defeated at the earliest possible moment required superhuman et- fort by troops and commanders. Every available combat aircraft oi both the Tacticsal and the Strategic Air forces was thrown into the action. Bombers flew two missions a day isolating the battle area and pounding German strongpoints. During the four critical days our Air Forces flew 5000 sorties and dropped 2l50 tons of bombs in close support of the ground action. Naval gunfire supported the ground troops and the Navy kept the stream ol reinforcements coming in. On l3 September. and again the next day, reinforcing troops of the 82d Ar borne Division went ashore. By the morning of IS September the as sault was firmly established, the high ground commanding the heaches had been taken. and the crisis had passed While the fight ing was in progress during these critical days General Eisenhower found time to inform me;
 ". We are very much Ill the touch and go stage of this opera tion. We got the Italian Fleet ihto Malta and, because of the ltallah surrender, were able to rush lnto Taranto and Brindisi where no Ger mans were present. Our hold on beth places is precarious but we are striving nightly to reinforce.
 Value of Coordination
 our worse problem iS AVA LANCHE itself We have been un- able to advance and the enemy IS preparing a major counterattacK' The 45th Division is largely in the area now and l am using every thing we have bigber than a row boat to get the 3d Division In to Clark quickly. Tn the preesnt slt- nation our great hope is the Ar Force They are working flat out ana assuming. which I do, that our hold on southern Italy will finally De solidified. We are going to prove once again that the greatest value of any of the three services IS oroi- narily realized only when u IS utilized in close coordination Wltn the other two
 On Is September, patrols oi the Fifth and Eighth Armies met 40 miles southeast of Salerno uniting the fronts of General AleXanders Fifteenth Army Group, The critical phase of the Italian campaign had ended
 Shortage of assault shipping and landing craft continued to haunt our operations. A single division, for example, required for its land ing at Salerno 30 LISTS, 24 LCT's 39 LCTs, 9 large transports, 4 freighters. and numerous misceI- laneous small landing craft. Never theless. during the first l8 days Navy crews anu Army service troops landed over the Salerno beaches a total of 108oo0 tons of supplies 3o.00O motor vehicles, and l89o00 troops.
 The advance on Naples followed the successful completion Of the fighting at Salerno. The Fifth and Eighth Armies under General Alexarder were now deployed abreast The Fifth occupied Naples and its harbor on l October and the Eighth Army reached Foggia, seizing its extensive system of air. fields. Field Marshal Kesselring commanding the German Forces in Italy, withdrew northward to de- laying positions along the Volturno River. Sardinia had been evacuated by the Nazis on 20 September and