Into the Mountains

To the French fell the honor of opening the battle. Fifteen minutes before other troops went out, under the booming of the greatest U.S.-British artillery barrage of World War II--far more guns than the British used at El Alamein--the soldiers of shy, silent General Alphonse Pierre Juin moved up Mt. Faito, about halfway between the British at Cassino and the U.S. soldiers near the coast at Minturno.

Said General Juin: "French combatants of Italy! The great battle . . . which may hasten the final victory and liberation of the motherland . . . will be ruthless and pursued with utmost energy. Having the honor of carrying our flag, you will achieve victory, as you have already done before, thinking of martyred France awaiting you and looking toward you. Forward into battle!"

On the Beachhead. North along the Tyrrhenian seacoast, the Anzio beachhead, where lay most of the U.S. troops in Italy, was quiet. More than a week before, the Germans had flooded the Pontine Marshes to make more difficult an attack from Anzio on Kesselring's rear. But that attack would come anyhow. If the drive in the south set the Germans into retreat, an assault from Anzio across their crowded rear-area roads could indeed lead to the destruction of Kesselring's army. The stage was set--if only the troops on the south could break through and send the Germans northward.

From the Rapido to the Sea. General Juin's Frenchmen fought well. By capturing Mt. Faito they achieved the first real success of the campaign. Moreover, they held it.

Aided by U.S. flamethrowers and U.S. soldiers in tanks, the French also captured the ancient town of Castelforte (pop. 8,000), climbed a 3,000-ft. mountain and pushed five miles across the valley to sever the road which linked German-held Cassino to the Tyrrhenian Sea. General Juin's hard-fighting troops were colonials (mostly Moroccans) led by French officers and noncoms.

On Juin's right the British Eighth Army, under huge, round-shouldered Lieut. General Sir Oliver Leese--Britons, Poles, New Zealanders, Indians and Italians--battered forward. Theirs was the toughest nut: to encircle Cassino and the crack German parachutists of Lieut. General Richard Heidrich, -who had boasted that he would throw the Allies out of that part of Cassino which they held.

By week's end British troops (chiefly Indians) had forced a bridgehead across the Rapido one mile deep, five miles wide. Scattered German units fought to the last man.

The U.S. Part. Dispatches indicated that Lieut. General Mark Wayne Clark's U.S. troops, on Juin's left, had not joined the fight in great force. The opposition in their sector near the sea was partly non-German, including Poles and Czechs, but these pseudo-Nazis fought a stubborn rearguard action.

First exclusively U.S. goal was the hill village of Santa Maria Infante, halfway between Castelforte and the sea. It was finally taken when Germans evacuated it, but not until Mark Clark's men had suffered relatively heavy casualties.

From the Air. The infantry was getting the brunt, as usual. But it might have been worse. Behind them one of the great concentrations of artillery thundered at targets long "zeroed in" for the day. And above them worked an air-support team that doughboys were already calling "great."

"Uncle Joe" Cannon's Twelfth Air Force was at work over the lines. It also ranged north into the Germans' rear areas, smashing bridges, shooting up railroad and truck trains. It was busy every hour of the day at what Joe Cannon called its "strangling operation." General Cannon had given his airman's word that all heavy communications from the north had been cut days before the battle began, and that they would stay cut. If his judgment was correct, the men on the ground could plow forward with hope at their grim job: making the Germans spend ammunition and men until their supplies ran out, then moving in on them.

The First Phase. So for the first few days, at least, fighting on the Gustav Line would be a job of battering the enemy, feeling him out, making him commit his reserves to the wrong place. Possibly not even General Alexander could yet tell where he would finally thrust his knife to rip up the spine of Italy.

Cabled TIME Correspondent Will Lang: "There have been short offensive spurts with actions, counterattacks, little victories and little defeats. The slowness of the advance is to be expected as we hit the Germans' best-prepared positions. The real test comes later."

At week's end Allied officers appeared satisfied with their progress. The advances had indeed been small--they could be measured in thousands of yards or in terms of a few miles. But it was a good start.

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