After five years of reading and archival research plus three fascinating trips to the Canadian battlefields in Italy, I continue to marvel at the endurance and accomplishment of the Allied soldiers and puzzle over the meaning and significance of a campaign that lasted twice as long as the advance from Normandy to the Baltic.  Most of the 30 articles I wrote for Legion Magazine that form the basis fo this website deal with the campaign at the tactical level but my focus today is on strategic and operational questions that Canadians should consider when remembering the campaign in Italy.

I want to begin these comments by placing the Mediterranean theatre within the meta-narrative of the Second World War that I use in my classes.  My version of “Why we won the war” drew upon Professor Phillips O’Brien’s 1989 article in the Journal of Strategic Studies titled “East versus West in the Defeat of Nazi Germany.” Dr. O’Brien would be the first to agree that his work is suggestive rather than definitive but his careful statistical argument is a welcome change from the ideologically-influenced insistence that the eastern front was the decisive theatre where in Richard Overy’s words “democracy was saved by the exertions of communism.”

O’Brien, using readily available manpower and war production figures, argued that by mid-1943 the majority of the German war effort was directed against the west especially in the defence of Germany against air attack.  He writes, “while only 15% of the efforts of the Wehrmacht were focused away from the Eastern Front almost all of Germany’s naval effort, 65% of its Luftwaffe commitment, 70% of anti-aircraft guns and munitions and 100% of air raid defence were used in the war against the west.”  O’Brien did not explore Germany’s investments in radar, the V1, V2 or V3 rockets and other high cost, science-intensive weapons in his 1989 article but he has offered a detailed account of how in 1943, the V weapons became “the single highest priority weapon for Nazi Germany” in his book How the War was Won (2015).

            The Allied rationale for the invasion of mainland Italy was to tie down German forces preventing their transfer to France before Overlord. A secondary purpose, establishing a strategic air force within range of southern Germany and the Rumanian oil fields was satisfied after the advance to the Foggia plain. Sharp disagreements between Americans and the British began to develop in late 1943 as the British sought to nourish the armies in Italy with men and equipment while the Americans insisted on the overriding priority of Overlord. Throughout 1944 veteran divisions were transferred to England and then the continent despite British protests. This placed extraordinary burden on the troops left in Italy who were repeatedly committed to battle despite the terrain, the weather and detailed knowledge of the movement of German forces in and out of Italy. This information from Ultra suggested that the threat of Allied action, particularly sea-borne assaults, greatly influenced German troop movements. So a key question for students of the Italian campaign is how much Allied effort was required to hold large German forces in Italy and how to achieve a breakthrough and win a great victory.

After mid-1943, the war in the Mediterranean began to add dramatically to the proportion of war materiel, manpower and airpower devoted to the war against the West.  In simple numerical terms, the Germans sacrificed 125,000 men in Tunisia and had committed 195,000 men to the defence of Italy before Operation Husky begun in July 1943.  That number rose steadily.  On 1 April 1944, the German total was close to 400,000 men, a year later, April 1945, Army Group C had 599,000 men on strength These totals are exclusive of German forces committed to Greece and the Balkans, a proportion of whom were present to forestall or defeat an Allied crossing of the Adriatic.

One reason that Germany was willing to maintain such large land forces in the Mediterranean after 1943 was the role Northern Italy played in the German war economy.  The industries of Turin and Milan together with the agriculture of the lowland plain became more important assets with the shrinking of German economic space in the east. This, together with Hitler’s irrational commitment to Mussolini, his oldest ally, are basic realities of any overview of what happened in Italy.

The Luftwaffe also committed significant resources to the Mediterranean.  As Williamson Murray has shown, German aircraft losses in July 1943 when the Wehrmacht was engaged in the battle of Kursk-Orel were 40% higher in the Mediterranean than on the Eastern front.

Major-General Sir William Jackson, the British official historian uses divisional comparisons to argue that the Italian campaign succeeded as a holding action because after August 1944 the Germans committed more divisions to Italy than the Allies. The Canadian official historian, Col. G.W.L. Nicholson, accepts this ratio of division but adds that “throughout 1944 the total strength of Allied forces in Italy continued to exceed one and a half million.” So who was fighting the holding action?  The 1.5 million figure is only part of the story.  The total commitment of Allied forces, men and women to the Mediterranean theatre in 1944 was over two million.  All of them had to be fed, and clothed using resources shipped from North America or Great Britain.  Many of them had to be armed.  Very large numbers were hospitalized at some point during 1944, nearly three times the number admitted to medical units in Northwest Europe due largely to diseases such as malaria.

More needs to be said about battle casualties in Italy.  An Army Operational Research Report (AORG 2/54) titled, “Battle Wastage Rates of Personnel in War,” was prepared by a team of OR scientist-mathematicians to revise the Evetts scale for predicting casualties which had been in use during the war.

The report is a gold mine of information about casualties by arm of service, officer-other rank ratios, killed-wounded ratios and much else.  Maj. Gen. Evetts had failed to anticipate the nature of the war with its attritional battles resulting in a concentration of casualties among front line combat troops, especially infantry.  The senior researcher H.G. Gee was puzzled by the evidence from Italy where battle casualties as a percentage of troops engaged were 50 percent lower than in Northwest Europe.  His team concluded that divisions had committed fewer battalions to each action in Italy and the Evetts definition of “intense” periods of combat, “one or more battalion in direct action with the enemy,” needed to be revised as casualties appeared to be directly proportionate to the number of infantry battalions engaged.

Neuro-psychiatric casualties, battle exhaustion, or combat fatigue as the Americans called it, also raise some interesting questions.  As always, caution should be employed in citing numbers because so much depends, as it does today with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, on who is making the diagnosis.  Nevertheless, there is strong evidence that the toll of such casualties was much higher in Italy than in Northwest Europe; the figures for the British Army, 30 per thousand are double the number when we annualize 1944 figures for NWE.  American numbers show a similar pattern and it appears that the incidence of disabling psychiatric illness continued to plague soldiers inItaly in and out of combat, until the last days of the war.

The related problem of absence without leave and desertion also needs to be integrated into accounts of the campaign.  Always a serious problem in Italy, it reached crisis proportions in the winter of 1944-45 when deserters and absentees in the British Army averaged 1000 men a month.  More than 5000 British soldiers were serving sentences for desertion in 1944 and the numbers for Fifth U.S. Army were similar.  Most such offenses occurred “in anticipation of action against the enemy,” meaning soldiers took off after they learned their formation would be returning to the front lines.

Staying with numbers, it appears that the casualty rates in Italyas between nations require further study.  Existing accounts do not really explain why Americans incurred 36% of all casualties (3 September 1943 to 2 May 1945) while British, as distinct from Empire losses total 29.1 percent.  Indeed, when French Expeditionary Corps numbers are added, Fifth U.S. Army appears to have endured about the same number of casualties as all British and Commonwealth forces combined. Within Eighth Army, the Canadians, New Zealanders, Indians and Poles account for fully 40% of the casualties.  One might explain this by noting that on average just 30% of British troops served within the combat-zone but we then must consider the significance of having more than 300,000 British soldiers serving behind the rear divisional boundaries in Italy. Particularly when in 1944, the British divisions were forced to reduce their infantry strength by 25 percent.

The specific Canadian role in this vast enterprise needs to be better rooted in some contextual analysis.  The 1st Division and 1st Canadian Tank Brigade were sent to Italy because the Minister of National Defence, Col. J. L. Ralston was determined to get Canadian troops into action in 1943.  The British reluctantly stood down 3rd British Division, allowing the Canadians to take their place.  Despite three years of training in England, the division was far from ready for combat and the 3rd Brigade performed so poorly at the amphibious training school in Scotland that consideration was given to replacing it in the order of battle. Fortunately, the division’s introduction to combat was gradual and by the time heavy fighting began on 20 July, Simonds was able to selectively employ the best battalions of 1st and 2nd Brigades with the highly capable Three Rivers Regiment.  By the end of the Sicilian campaign, 1st Division was on its way to becoming a highly effective formation.

The 5th Armoured Division, the headquarters and ancillary troops of I Canadian Corps were forced on Alexander by Ralston and the long acrimonious debate over the employment of the corps and the capacity of Lieut-General E.L.M. “Tommy” Burns to command it began.

I have always been puzzled by the argument historians who insist that the divisions of II Canadian Corps “failed” in Normandy because they “did not get enough out of their training.”  When 1st Division, which had much less time to train before going into action, is generally highly regarded.  Perhaps we need a little more multi-variable analysis in our explanatory tool kit.

The successive commanders of Eighth Army made extensive use of the Canadians, detaching 1st Canadian Armoured Brigade, which many considered to be the best independent tank brigade in Italy, to support British formations and committing the Canadians to the heaviest fighting at the Moro River and beyond.

A total of 92,257 Canadians served in Italy.  Of these, 5,399 lost their lives and 19,486 were wounded.  A further 1002 became prisoners of war and 365 died from “causes other than war.”  Expressed as a percentage, this means that almost one third of the Canadians who served in Italy became casualties of war, not counting those who were evacuated for battle exhaustion.  The number of Canadians labeled as neuro-psychiatric casualties in Italy was exceptionally high with 5020 individuals so designated during the 17 months of the campaign.  This means that one in five non-fatal casualties was evacuated for “battle exhaustion” with much higher rates in periods of intense combat.  Bill McAndrew, who wrote the chapters on Italy in our book on the subject, attributed this to the poor quality of reinforcements sent to Italy; but the character of the campaign and the professional views of A.M. Doyle, the Canadian psychiatrist, who was convinced that such casualties occurred among men who were pre-disposed to break down by heredity and life experiences are more likely factors.  Doyle made considerable use of a catch-all diagnosis “psychopathic personality inadequate,” which was applied to individuals suffering from combat stress or physical exhaustion who did not fit into any recognized categories.  This was the same garbage diagnosis used for men reported to be homosexuals.

Canadians rates for absence without leave and desertion were also striking.  When I Canadian Corps moved to Holland in February 1945, 1033 Canadian soldiers were left behind to serve out their prison sentences of one to five years hard labour.  “Another 100 were awaiting trial or sentencing and there were 500 deserters at large.” Almost all were from infantry battalions.  Clearly we are describing the outlines of a very large problem that got worse towards the end of 1944 when fewer and fewer front line soldiers retained any confidence in those who issued orders to continue a seemingly pointless struggle in the cold and rain of a second bitter winter.

Canadian casualties from August to December 1944 were very heavy, 4511 in the battles for the Gothic and Rimini Lines, and 2581 in the Battle of the Rivers, more than one quarter of all those we suffered in Italy. But, as C. P. Stacey pointed out the decision to assault the Gothic Line and continue the attritional battle into the winter “was taken almost casually” without input or indeed information made available to the countries including Canada that would pay a disproportionate share of the human costs.

If the decision to continue major offensive operators in Italy after the withdrawal of American and French divisions for Anvil-Dragoon is contested, what can be said of the decision to continue the struggle in the mud and misery of the Romagna plain?  The British official history suggests that “the least said about the autumn battles in the Romagna the better” but Canadians should not take such a detached view.  Few of us have paid much attention to those who fought and died on the banks of the Lamone, the Senio or the streams in between, but an analysis of casualties raises important questions.

Was there a case for continuing costly offensive action in Italy when the threat of such action was proving sufficient to hold German divisions south of the Alps?  It seems to me that much of the impulse for action in the latter half of 1944 came from the grand designs of Churchill and Alexander who sought to pursue broader British strategic goals in the Mediterranean.  These goals included a major victory that would be seen to be won in a British-dominated theatre of operations. Ironically, there were few British troops available to pursue these objectives. Only one of the six active divisions in Eighth Army was British in late 1944.

The result was that the costly battles fought in December 1944 required Canada to pay a particularly heavy price.  Dr. Geoff Keelan, a then graduate student at the University of Waterloo, developed a Commonwealth Forces Fatal Casualty database for Italy that allows us to analyse fatal casualties by division, brigade and battalion.  It offers a much finer tool for comparing fatal casualties, including date and rank.  Keelan’s figures show that 515 of the 799 fatal casualties incurred by Eighth Army in December were Canadians.

Where was the Canadian government or senior Canadian Army officers in all this?  Prime Minister King had informed the British government that Canadian troops could not be employed outside of Italy in the various missions underway in Greece, the Middle East and Yugoslavia.  But, the army, apart from endorsing the view that I Canadian Corps ought to join their comrades in Northwest Europe as soon as possible, had no mechanism for expressing its view of the orders issued by Eighth Army.  The Corps Commander, Charles Foulkes, who in theory could have declined to commit his troops, simply followed orders.  The Canadians in Italy, like the Poles, New Zealanders and Indians, functioned as Imperial troops pursuing an Allied holding action and the fading dreams of post-war British influence in the Mediterranean.

When we construct a Canadian memory of the Italian campaign, we rightly emphasize examples of operational and tactical effectiveness, individual courage and a significant contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany.  There are however other stories that need to be told about the nature, purposes and cost of the campaign.  In 1994, I was presenting a paper at a conference in Edinburgh and was able to meet the Scottish poet Hamish Henderson who wrote 3/3 of the original version of the D-Day Dodgers.  He sang it for us in a light tenor voice, by the last verse we were all in tears.

In their Footsteps: Visiting Italy

From the bare mountains of central Sicily, through the Moro River and Ortona and on to the Liri Valley, the Gothic Line and the rivers of northern Italy, Canadian and Commonwealth forces faced extraordinary challenges, always attacking, always up against a determined, powerful enemy. There were no soft spots in the series of continuous fronts the soldiers encountered, no flanks to be easily turned, no breakthroughs to be quickly exploited. Their story is one of courage and endurance.

Eighty years later, historians are deeply divided over the value of the strategic and operational decisions that committed large Allied forces to the campaign. The debate continues to resonate because in addition to the very considerable Allied battle casualties, 320,000 killed, wounded and captured, non-battle sickness and injury especially malaria, jaundice and battle exhaustion took an enormous toll. It is also necessary to remember that the peak effective strength of 5th and 8th armies, 550,000 troops, represented less than a third of the air, naval and land forces committed to the Italian theatre in 1944. Almost everything these men and women consumed or used had to come from Britain or North America and this imposed a great logistical weight on the Allied war effort.

The enemy forces, enjoying interior lines of communication, proximity to Germany and control of the agricultural and industrial production of northern Italy, were able to limit Allied advances even though they employed roughly one third of the manpower committed by the Allies.

All Canadians with a personal connection to the men or a serious interest in the history of our nation should consider a trip, a kind of pilgrimage to Italy and it should begin in Sicily. Go the spring or fall, when it is not too hot. Fly to Rome, make a connection to Catania and pick up a rental car. Once there you will find friendly people and well marked routes to battlefields. Stay in Taormina, Syracuse or Enna and concentrate on the Canadian role in the battles for Assoro, Agira, Leonforte and Regalbuto.

The Canadian military cemetery in Sicily in near Mount Etna. Canadian casualties in Sicily were 584 killed, 1,757 wounded and 76 taken prisoner. All the identified burials are located at the Cemetery. The list of names, as for all Commonwealth war graves cemeteries, is available at http://www.cwgc.org.

It is a brief ferry ride from Sicily to the mainland, on a route that retraces the path taken by the Canadians in Operation Baytown. There was only slight resistance and the men began to follow a long and very winding road into the toe and instep of the Italian boot.

Today Calabria is far more accessible with better roads and a wide range of tourist accommodation. If you have time for a route that approximates the advance of 1^st Canadian Division take E90 east to SS534 and E45 to Potenza and on Campobasso. The coastal scenery as well as the inland mountains are well worth the time. Many visitors will prefer to go north to Salerno and the famous Amalfi coast before rejoining the 1^st Canadian Division’s path at Potenza or Campobasso.

Ortona is the name attached to the best remembered Canadian action in Italy, but to understand the events of that bleak December in 1943 you need to begin at the Commonwealth war cemetery above the Sangro River. General Bernard Montgomery’s plan to advance on Rome from the east required the Eighth Army to cross a series of rivers beginning with the Sangro. Both the Canadian armoured brigade and the infantry division were committed to support this advance with 1st Div. taking over the coastal sector from 78th British Div. after its costly battle for the Sangro.

The Via Valeria, the lateral road between Pescara and Rome, is less than 30 kilometres north of the Sangro, but for the New Zealand, Indian and Canadian divisions it might as well have been on the moon. For those retracing the Canadian campaign it is worth spending several days in the Ortono-Orsogna area. The Moro River and the Gully, notorious battlefields south of Ortona, as well as the city should be seen. The marvellous museum of the battle of Ortona in the city centre is strongly recommended. The Moro River Canadian War Cemetery is the burial place of 1,375 Canadians who lost their lives in the struggle.

There are good hotels in Ortona but visitors may wish to stay at one of the beachfront hotels at the Lido Ricco just north of Ortona. The Lido and the hill above it (Pt. 59) were the last positions wrested from the Germans before the offensive was abandoned.

In the spring of 1944, the Canadians crossed to the other side of Italy to take part in the Battle for Rome. To understand the events of May and June you must begin at Cassino where the famous abbey and the Monte Cassino massif overlooks the southern approaches and guards the narrow Liri Valley that opens the way to Rome.

The view from Monte Cassino is spectacular and the abbey has been fully restored. The Polish military cemetery lies just below the abbey and contains the graves of more than 1,000 men of the Polish Corps. Their commander, General Wladyslaw Anders, was buried here following his death in 1970. Our Polish comrades fought alongside the Canadians in many battles and large numbers moved to Canada after the war. The memorial plaque at Cassino is an eloquent reminder of the contribution and sacrifice they made. It reads:

The British Commonwealth Cassino War Cemetery lies below the mountain. In addition to individual graves, there are the names of 4,054 Commonwealth soldiers who lost their lives in the Sicilian and Italian campaigns, but have no known grave. They are inscribed on the Cassino Memorial within the cemetery grounds. Included are 194 Canadians.

The Canadians entered the battle after months of frustrating, small-scale attempts to gain control of Monte Cassino and the defences known as the Gustav Line. Operation Diadem, the code-name for the offensive, was timed to draw enemy resources away from France in the weeks before D-Day (June 6, 1944). Eleven divisions, including 1st and 5th Canadian, were to mount the attack. First Canadian Armoured Bde. assisted 8th Indian Div. in the assault phase across the Gari River with the Canadian Corps held in reserve to exploit.

The SR630 road west from Cassino takes travellers to the Pontecorvo road (SP45). There are several vantage points where visitors can quickly grasp the problem of pushing elements of two army corps, Canadian and British through this mountain-edged valley. The stone bridge across the Forme d’Aquino is the same one seized intact by the 48th Highlanders in a textbook right flanking action. Once in Pontecorvo, look for the new plaque honouring the Canadians in the main square. There are few remaining signs of the formidable defences, but the terrain hasn’t changed much.

The 5th Canadian Armd. Division’s advance to the Melfa River and beyond can be traced with a stop at the actual crossing point. The house seized by Lieutenant Edward Perkins and his Lord Strathcona’s Horse reconnaissance squadron, and the battlefield where Major John Mahony of the Westminster Regt. earned the Victoria Cross is almost exactly where the highway crosses the river. It can be reached by crossing the Melfa on the old road—the S6—and turning left to San Giovanni Incarico. There is a commemorative plaque on the farmhouse wall.

The Canadian Corps was pulled out of the battle before the entry into Rome, but Canadians serving in the First Special Service Force were very much involved. The Allies were unable to trap the German forces or pursue them energetically and in mid-June, 1st Canadian Armd. Bde. provided much of the hitting power when British XIII Corps caught up with the enemy at what became known as the Trasimene Line. The area west of Lake Trasimeno is also well worth a visit on the way north to the Gothic Line.

The Gothic Line battles of September 1944 were among the most challenging and costly engagements fought by Canadians in the Second World War. To appreciate the incredible Canadian achievements, visitors should first view the battlefield from the church square in Montemaggiore, named Belvedere Churchill because this is where British prime minister Winston Churchill watched the attack unfold. Visitors can follow the routes taken by the Canadian divisions through countryside that is little changed so long as you do not wander too close to the coast. Be sure and stop at the memorial located on Pt. 204, where a gun turret and explanatory plaques help make sense of this complex hilly terrain.

Coriano Ridge War Cemetery, which includes the graves of 427 Canadians killed in action in the region, is located in the heart of the battlefield.

The armies of many nations whose sons and daughters are part of the contemporary Canadian mosaic are part of the story of the Italian Campaign. British and Polish soldiers, the New Zealand Div., and Greek Mountain Bde., Italian partisans and army units, and divisions of the Indian Army recruited from what is now Pakistan, as well as India. Almost 6,000 soldiers of that army lost their lives in the campaign. About half are buried in cemeteries, the rest—for religious reasons—were cremated and their memorials may be found near Rimini, for the Gurkhas, and Forli, for Sikhs and others.

The Battle of the Rivers, which began in October 1944 and was still underway when the Canadians left Italy to rejoin First Canadian Army in Holland, is the least known of all the Canadian actions in the Second World War. The distance from Rimini and the Gothic Line to Ravenna and the Senio River is less than 40 kilometres and the key points in the flat terrain can be seen in a day. Those with a particular family connection or special interest in the 5th Armd. Div. should visit the Villanova Canadian War Cemetery, one of just three in Italy, including Sicily, designated as Canadian. All but six of the gravestones display the Maple Leaf.

A nearby monument to the engineers of Eighth Army is a sharp reminder of the enormous importance of the men who cleared minefields, built bridges and performed a myriad of other vital tasks. The plaque notes that 2,494 bridges were built to support Commonwealth and Polish operations in Italy. Nearby, the Ravenna War Cemetery includes British, Canadian and Indian army graves and a section contains headstones marked with the Star of David and the trilingual badge (Hebrew, Arabic and English) of the Palestine Regt. which was commanded by Canadian Brigadier Ernest F. Benjamin. No other campaign had the international character of the battles for Italy.

Hamish Henderson, a Scot who originally served with 51 Highland Div., wrote the original version of the D-Day Dodgers:

I had the good fortune to hear Hamish sing the last verse, and I have never forgotten his words.