Hello friends, today let's **, what were the tactical mistakes of the Allied Operation Cobblestone during World War II? Now, let's find out.
The operation was launched on January 22, 1944. Four days before the launch of this operation, the US Fifth Army launched a new attack on the Garigliano and Lapido rivers near Cassino in Italy. The British 1st Infantry Division, led by Major General Ronald Penney, with the support of the 46th Royal Tank Regiment and the 2nd Special Forces Commando, landed north of Anzio, Italy. The U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, led by Major General Lucien Trascott, supported by a tank battalion, three ranger battalions, and an airborne battalion, landed south of Anzio.
The landing went surprisingly smoothly and met no resistance. Only a handful of German Air Force fighters strafed the ships through the Allied fighter umbrellas. Even so, the Allies lost only 13 men and 97 wounded. Anzio itself has been abandoned by the Germans, and its civilians have moved out. Many German units were deployed further south to counter the U.S. Fifth Army's attack on Garigliano. By the end of the day, 36,000 Allied soldiers and 3,200 vehicles had been transported ashore. At that time, a jeep patrol car of the US Fifth Army discovered the road to Rome. At this time, the American army could have pursued the Germans at full speed. However, the commander of the Fifth Army, John Lucas, did not seize this opportunity and chose to wait in place for all the other landing forces to come ashore.
Six days later, Lucas began to order all Anglo-American forces to advance on the Anzio beachhead, but it was too late. In order to prevent the second Battle of Stalingrad, Hitler ordered German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring to take full command of the German forces in Italy and defend Italy. Marshal Kesselring, having received the order, quickly dispatched a contingency plan. He redeployed the Fourteenth Army from bases near Rome and called in new reinforcements from northern Italy, France, and Germany. Kesselring demanded that the Fourteenth and Tenth Armies must hold the Gustav Line, a line of defense through which the Allies had fought a long and hard battle. On January 25, 1944, five divisions (40,000 Germans) under the command of General Eberhard von Mackensen had surrounded the Allied beachhead. On January 28, 1944, when U.S. commander Lucas asked troops to march to the beachhead, Albert Kesselring ordered a counterattack on the Allied beachhead in Anzio, Italy.
The Allies did not immediately attack from Anzio. At that time, Lucas was more concerned with how to build up his troops on a beachhead of about 11 kilometers. This encouraged Kesselring. When the Allies began to attack, the British advanced along the road to Albano, Italy, to the villages of Apriglia. Due to the sturdy buildings and towers of the village, it is known as the "Steel Factory". In the coming weeks, there was a fierce battle between the British and German forces here. The Americans advanced on the West Sterna, which was stopped directly due to the stubborn resistance of the Germans.
On February 7, 1944, General Mackensen launched a massive counterattack on this narrow Allied position. The defensive positions of the British 1st Division were first bombarded by German artillery, and then infiltrated by German infantry. After suffering 1,400 men**, General Penny was forced to withdraw. The Germans continued to advance, and finally the British 1st Division, which had been crushed by the 45th Infantry Division, was hastily evacuated.
The commander of the US army, John Lucas, after the landing, did not appear active the other day. This angered British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who expressed confusion at Lucas's slow response, saying: "I thought we had thrown a feral cat ashore, but it turned out to be a stranded whale." After all, the operation was Churchill's idea, and the failure of the operation greatly slowed down the progress of the Allies in Italy. In fact, the cautious attitude of the United States at that time was not wrong, and the US military had already paid a lot of price when attacking the Garigliano and Lapido rivers, and the temporary support of the US military was no longer enough to continue the offensive. Lucas believed that any troops from Anzio to Albano would be alone, with little threat to the Germans, and could also be destroyed.
Finally, on February 16, 1944, the German 14th Army, led by Mackensen, completed a full-scale counterattack and crushed the Allied camp. The overwhelming firepower, air support, ground artillery, and offshore ship batteries used successfully drove the British and American forces back into the sea. On the day he was driven back to sea, John Lucas took command by Mark Wayne Clark. Despite his removal from command and resentment towards the British (because he believed that the British were using him as a scapegoat for the failure of the operation), upon his return to the United States, Lucas was awarded the U.S. Army Medal of Distinguished Service, the Navy Medal of Merit, and the Silver Star for his achievements in the Italian battle.
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