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The failure of the attack on 14 September punctured Vietinghoff’s previous optimism. By the end of the day the Allies had established two separate and shallow beachheads, and two thirds of 16th Panzer’s tanks were damaged or destroyed, leaving the Germans with only 35 in working order. - Contact Us - Search - Recent - About Us -  Subscribe in a reader - Join our Google Group © copyright 2003-2020 Study.com. The Allies had expected the Germans to do this, and had a team in place ready to deal with it. Apulia, the eastern tip of Italy, was defended by the weakened 1 Paratroop Division. The 15 Panzer Grenadier Division and the Hermann Goring Panzer Division were posted north of Naples. Although World War II lasted until 1945, Italy surrendered to Allied powers in 1943 (and, later, switched to join the Allies). However the Germans still had to cross the Calore, and their only route across was a ford near a burnt out bridge. 16th Panzer kept the Americans away from Eboli, and the British 56th Division was forced back from Battipaglia. On 16 September HMS Warspite was hit by another glide bomb, and very badly damaged. The troops attacked nonetheless. These allowed the engineers to work in relative safety, as the Germans didn’t want to risk losing their few anti-tank weapons at this stage of the campaign. The Allies thus had 70,000 men in four divisions for the initial landing. She was never fully repaired, although did take part in the D-Day invasions with one of her main turrets still out of action. This made their tanks an ideal target for the artillery, and the two units fired 4,000 rounds into the advancing Germans during the day’s actions. By 13 September Montgomery’s advance guard was still 120 miles away and his main forces 160 miles away, with many miles of difficult terrain to cross. They encountered more than twenty five blown bridges in the first stage of the advance, the short distance inland from the beachhead to Oliveto. On 12 September the Germans counterattacked (after parts of the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division arrived) and retook Altavilla and Hill 424, reopening the Sele corridor. The Germans then concentrated their fire against the landing craft, briefly causing a crisis at the beach. Vietinghoff somewhat misjudged the situation, believing that the Allies were already planning to evacuate the beachhead. The Germans were also helped by an unusually powerful Luftwaffe response for the period, with 550 sorties flown during the first three days of the campaign, including the successful use of two types of remote controlled glide bombs. Become a Study.com member to unlock this The Northern Attack Force (Commodore N.G.N. The Battle of Salerno occured from Sept. 9 - 16, 1943 in southern Italy. Within two weeks the port could handle 3,500 tons of cargo per day and within a month that had risen to 7,000 tons, close to the pre-war average of 8,000 tons. On the left the British 46th Division around Salerno came under heavy pressure, but held on. Despite these early problems the British Commandos managed to capture Salerno town, and reached the edge of the airfield at Montecorvino, although an attempt to take the airfield failed. More useful was the arrival of another 2,100 men from the 82nd Airborne within the beach head (Operation Giant IV). He had two corps under his command. The Germans had also hidden time delayed bombs in the city, even going as far as hiding some of them behind new brickwork. The link up with the Eighth Army finally took place on 20 September, when troops from both Allied armies reached Auletta, 20 miles to the east of Eboli. The 505th Parachute Regiment was dropped near Paestum, on the right flank of the beachhead. The operation was eventually approved, with the hope that it would knock Italy out of the war. The VI Corps was to land to the south of the Sele. Operation Avalanche, or the battle of Salerno (9-18 September 1943) was the main part of the Allied invasion of the Italian mainland, and saw a joint Anglo-American force land in the Gulf of Salerno, where it had to fight off a severe German counterattack before the position was fully secured. The 56th Division pushed towards Battipaglia, but the Fusiliers were pushed out of the town, and the British were thus unable to take the high ground that dominated the Montecorvino airfield. The tank destroyers of the 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion were also effective, claiming twelve tanks. British tanks finally entered Battipaglia. As the first wave approached the shore at Paestum a loudspeaker from the landing area proclaimed in English, "Come on in and give up. By 0800 Vietinghoff was convinced that this was the main Allied invasion, and on his own initiative ordered 16th Panzer to concentrate all of its forces at Salerno and make a stand. Eventually the Americans got organised and pushed inland, reaching up to 4 miles from the coast. The 26 Panzer Division and 29 Panzer Grenadier Division were in Calabria, in the toe of Italy, where they faced Montgomery’s Eighth Army, but with orders to conduct a fighting retreat and avoid any serious engagements. The Hermann Goering Division and 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, both still recovering from the battering they had received on Sicily, were just to the north, and the first of their 27,000 men were able to reach the battlefield on the night of 9-10 September. The most notorious of these was in the post office, and exploded six days after the Allied occupation, killing or wounding more than seventy people. They now had to be rebuilt as the Americans advanced further into the hills, and further away from good roads. On the American front there was no naval bombardment, as General Walker didn’t believe that there were any suitable targets. The Southern Attack Force (Rear-Admiral John L. Hall, USN), was to carry the US 6th Corps. A landing further north was ruled out by the limited range of Allied fighters based on Sicily. The original objective was to take Sicily to keep the experienced Allied troops in the Mediterranean busy, but then to stop. The efforts of the Northwest African Air Forces were also concentrated on the Salerno front, attacking the German positions at Eboli and Battipaglia. This was especially bad near the coast, where there would be an eight mile gap between the American and British landing beaches. - Cookies. The British then advanced to the Biferno River, where they also ran into the new German defences. The invasion fleet began to leave its ports in North Africa and Sicily on 5 September, and assembled in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea on 8 September. The Salerno campaign was not won without its casualties, and the American units in the Fifth Army had paid for their success. Help - F.A.Q. At 6.30pm on 8 September, as the invasion fleet was approaching the Italian mainland, the Italian Armistice was announced. The main crisis was now over. Although at the time many in the Eighth Army believed that their advance had saved the day at Salerno, the crisis had actually passed by the time the two armies made contact. Eventually the Germans were forced to retreat back up the corridor between the rivers. On the British front the landings were preceded by a 15 minute naval bombardment. On the night of 14-15 September the 509th Parachute Battalion was dropped behind enemy lines (Operation Giant III), but it was so scattered that it had little impact. The Eighth Army, coming up from the south, was given the task of crossing to the Adriatic coast and taking Foggia and its associated airfields. The Allies were also able to get more reinforcements into the beachhead. Clark’s own HQ was also under threat, a few hundred yards behind the artillery. On 14 September the Germans attacked again, but they hadn’t detected the new American positions, and this attack was repulsed. The US VI Corps (Major General Ernest J. Dawley) consisted of the 36th and 45th Divisions. Naval gunfire also played a part in repelling the attack. The German attempts to throw the Allies back into the sea had failed, but Kesselring wasn’t defeated. On the Adriatic coast the Eighth Army captured Foggia and its airfields intact, giving the Allies air bases that could be used to carry the strategic bombing campaign into parts of southern German and Austria that had previously been almost immune to attack. The Gulf of Salerno wasn’t the ideal place for an opposed landing, but it was just about the best available to the Allies. Vietinghoff ordered the 29th Panzer Grenadier (although it took several days for the first troops to arrive) and 26th Panzer Divisions to rush north to Salerno, leaving only small rearguard parties to delay Montgomery with demolitions and rearguard actions. The invasion would start with an Eighth Army invasion of Calabria from Sicily (Operation Baytown), at the start of September. Montgomery would then advance up Calabria. He now asked for permission to withdraw, citing Allied naval gun fire, low flying aircraft and the approach of the 8th Army as the main reasons he needed to get his troops away from Salerno. An invasion of southern Italy became increasingly enticing (especially after the new Italian government entered into armistice negotiations), and gained the support of General Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander in the Mediterranean. History 301: Historiography & Historical Methods, Major Events in World History Study Guide, High School World History: Tutoring Solution, Virginia SOL - World History & Geography to 1500: Test Prep & Practice, SAT Subject Test World History: Practice and Study Guide, DSST A History of the Vietnam War: Study Guide & Test Prep, 7th Grade World History: Enrichment Program, 6th Grade World History: Enrichment Program, 8th Grade World History: Enrichment Program, History of the Vietnam War: Certificate Program, World Conflicts Since 1900: Certificate Program, Western Europe Since 1945: Certificate Program, Biological and Biomedical In evaluating the performance of German forces that opposed the Allies at Salerno, General Siegfried Westphal, Kesselring’s chief of staff, acknowledged the contribution the Allied navies made. The Germans reached the junction of the Sele and Calore Rivers, only two miles from the beach (just to the north-east of Ponte Barizzo). 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