Currently Browsing: This Week in Marne History
October 7 - 13
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
More from This Week in Marne History
10th Engineers Build Bridges in Italy in September and October 1943.
The American invasion of Southern Italy began on 9 September 1943 at Salerno on the west coast south of Naples. It was soon evident that, although Mussolini had been deposed, wresting control of Italy from the Germans was going to be extremely difficult. On 13 September the 15th Army Group ordered the 3ID, then still in Sicily, to move to Salerno ASAP. The 3ID HQ, 30th IN and DIVARTY landed on the 18th. The situation at Salerno having greatly improved, the CG, MG Truscott, ordered the 30th IN to move to its first objective, Acerno, a town about ten miles east of Salerno, until the rest of the 3ID landed and joined it.
Acerno was not an important town, but capturing it after a two-day battle taught the 3ID valuable lessons about what war would be like in the Apennines and how necessary Engineer Battalions would be there. The first lesson came on a narrow road from the small village of Salitto to Acerno. A reverse curve led to a bridge over a 50-foot gorge and the Germans had blown it up to delay pursuit. The 10th Engineer Battalion reconstructed it in a day and the trek to Acerno continued.
Acerno taken, the 3ID chased after the retreating Germans, with the 45ID on its right and the British 10th Corps on its left. Again Engineers played a vital role. In a 2,200-yard stretch of road leading north from Acerno, no fewer than five bridges had been demolished, testimony to the difficulty of the terrain as well as German destructiveness. Later the Germans not only destroyed a bridge spanning a canyon, but also blew away the cliffside in which it was anchored, eliminating the road for about 100 feet. The 10th Engineers had bridge and road replaced in two days. Despite everything, by 30 September the 3ID had moved more than 25 miles to take Avellino, an important road junction.
In the first week in October the Division moved to its next objective, the Volturno River, some thirty-odd miles away. The Engineers contended with again blown bridges as well as elaborately prepared roadblocks, continual boobytraps, and mines at the entrances to villages. (Incredibly, the 1,200-room 18th century royal palace of King Charles III of Naples at Caserta was not boobytrapped, but the 15-IN which took Caserta had no time to stop and enjoy it.)
On 6 October the first units of the 3ID arrived at the south side of the Volturno River; by the 8th the entire Division was there, including the Engineers. The Volturno was 3-6 feet deep and about 150 feet wide with a hairpin loop in the middle of the 3ID sector. Its banks were 2-4 feet high and the ground was unusally soft from recent heavy rain. The Germans, of course, had blown the two bridges and a ridge overlooking the north bank meant those crossing could be under withering German fire. Before the crossing the Engineers constructed a tank road to the river’s edge and assembled all bridging material and guide rope for foot troops fording the river. At 0200 on 13 October the 7th IN began crossing the Volturno at the hairpin loop with the 15th IN on its right and the 39th Engineers ferryied troops across in rubber boats. As the Infantry were fighting along the north bank, the engineers were constructing a light bridge for jeeps and an 8-ton bridge capable of carrying 2½ ton trucks. Both were completed by the end of the day, Co. B, 10th Engineer Battalion suffering thirteen casualties and losing five trucks while building the 8-ton bridge. And the Engineers kept the bridges open on the 14th as German planes bombed and strafed it. By the morning of the 14th every 3ID infantry battalion was across the river and in position to continue the attack north toward Monte Cassino. But they could not have been so successful, nor could they have continued the attack for long, without the ammunition, food and weapons carried across the bridges built so speedily by the engineers.
