It should be emphasized that the majority of these maps, made by the Polish 12th Geographic Company, were highly appreciated and used also by our Allies.
Sangro river valley and Mainarde massif (Central-Southern Apennines) (Figs 3, 4)
Polish 2nd Corps had its baptism of fire in the Central-Southern Apennines. Our two infantry divisions, protected by armoured lancers regiments, were operating in the region of the Sangro and Volturno rivers divide. It should be emphasized that the areas of their positions were geologically and geomorphologically completely different. Those of the 3rd Carpathian Division were located in the upper reaches of Sangro valley on its right bank, covered predominantly by erodible Tertiary siliciclastics.
On the other side, those of the 5th Kresowa Division were situated in the high-mountainous Mesozoic calcareous Meta-Mainarde massif, close to the springs of the Volturno and Rapido rivers. They are tributaries of the Tyrrhenian Sea, while Sangro of the Adriatic.
Nevertheless, in the recently edited history of the 5th Kresowa Infantry Division, the chapter devoted to this period of its fighting in the Italian campaign is entitled “On the Sangro “. In fact the soldiers of 5th Division have never even seen this river. Consequently, we have a typical example of errors caused by insufficient knowledge and often lack of detailed maps, as well as of at least general data on physiography of battlefields. Unfortunately, this is rather common particularly among present day historians , describing operations of the Polish 2nd Corps in Italy. It should be added that during these operations revived the traditional Polish-Italian brotherhood of arms, since the first unit of the reviving Italian Armed Forces “1o Ragruppamento Motorizzato” was supporting the 5th Kresowa Division in the Mainarde sector.
Monte Cassino – Monto Cairo massif (Figs.5,6.7.8)
Probably in no other operation during the Italian campaign the physiographic character of its terrain was so important as in four battles of Cassino. The 2nd Polish Corps, taking part in the fourth victorious one called the battle for Rome, was fighting in central part of the Mesozoic calcareous massif Monte Cassino (521) – Monte Cairo (1669). It consists of hard but brittle and bedded, often fractured and faulted, limestones and dolomites, covered by rock fragments (boulders) of different size. Since it was impossible to dig the trenches in these rocks , soldiers of attacking battalions were using these boulders to form very primitive positions in front of strongly fortified and armed system of German bunkers. They were constructed by putting them together around their positions to be protected from machinegun fire and artillery or mortar shrapnels. Besides, the exploding artillery shells were shuttering the carbonate rock into glass-like fashion, causing heavy and difficult to medical cure head, face and eye injuries. In these conditions extremely difficult was even the change of the preceding us allied troops in this massif. The same refers to the evacuation of wounded soldiers and the supply of assault troops infantry battalions with ammunition, arms, water and food. They should be transported by supplying companies (including mine 22nd one)) first from the Venafro region through the adjacent calcareous massif predominantly to the advanced magazines in the Inferno Track , From there they could be transported to the front positions in the Monte Cassino-Monte Cairo massif only by special light vehicles and in rucksacks of soldiers porters, but ,first of all, using mule back transport. It was said that at Cassino one pack mule was worth half dozen tanks. Our Corps, thanks to the excellent work of Allied and Polish engineers, who have made from a mule truck leading to Albaneta plateau along the slope of Monte Castellone a road accessible to tanks, could insert into the battle very helpful tanks of the 4th Armoured Regiment “Scorpion”. This significantly contributed to the successful result of the enveloping maneuver of the Monastery hill Monte Cassino by our assault units what resulted in its historical conquest.
Periadriatic slope of Central Apennines and inshore zone of the Abruzzi and Marche region
It should be emphasized that because the Polish 2nd Corps was in this sector separated from other corpses of the 8th British Army by high Apennine mountain range, gen Anders was receiving but general orders from its commander gen. O, Leese and to plan their performance in completely autonomous manner. Therefore, just during the Adriatic campaign he could demonstrate his high qualification as commander of our actually reinforced Corps by Corpo Italiano di Liberazione (22.000 soldiers) and some British armoured and artillery regiments. It should be stressed that several significant successful operations of our Corps took place in difficult physiographic conditions, distinctly favouring not offensive but defensive actions. The Adriatic coastal region can be from geomorphologic viewpoint subdivided into seaside lowland ( (0,5 – 3 km wide) and a belt of foothills (400 – 659 m high). They are covered by young (Pliocene-Pleistocene) clayey-arenaceous sediments and cut by numerous rivers , flowing from these hills to the Adriatic, often flooding after rains, Moreover, German sappers were systematically destroying all road and railway bridges and rails, leaving in the abandoned areas numerous minefields and traps. Since our Corps was rich in various transport and armoured vehicles, its units were operating in the seaside lowland while rather poor in them Italian Corps on the lower part of foothills. In their upper part was useful the volunteer partisan Group Maiella, formed by Abruzzi highlanders. Despite all these difficulties. the 2nd Polish Corps, perfectly commanded by gen. Anders, has in proper time liberated very important port Ancona, necessary from logistic viewpoint for further operations in Italy of the whole 8th Army. This brilliant success, considered justly by historians as the most important Polish victory in the Italian campaign, was due to masterfully performed simultaneous breaking of German defense by our infantry and the envelope maneuver of armoured troops. Similar tactics was successfully applied in the very important battle on Metauro river . Our victory there has enabled the 8th Army divisions to break the strongly fortified Gothic Line just in the Adriatic sector. Altogether the Polish 2nd Corps in cooperation with Corpo Italiano di Liberazipne has liberated during this campaign the whole Marche province and nearly 200 km of the Adriatic coast. This fact, very little known in Poland, is with cordial gratitude remembered by population of the Marche region. These friendly feelings have been documented and expressed during recent visit in Cracow of mayors of its most important towns.
Romagna (Forli) Flysch Apennines (Figs.11,12,13,14,15)
(Foigs. It should be a priori emphasized that in all the publications on the operations of the Polish 2nd Corps in this region it is erroneously named Emilian Apennine. This mistake of the athors of first monographs and later copied was and is caused by insufficient knowledge of detailed geographic subdivision of the northern part of this mountain belt. In fact, all the battlefields of our Corps from October 1944 to April 1945 were situated in the eastern Romagna part of the Emilia-Romagna region. Therefore, its southern mountainous part is called in Italian handbooks and publications Appennino Romagnolo or Forlivese , since the capital of this region is Forli. The discussed part of combat trail of our Corps , nearly unknown in our country, belongs to the most difficult in the Italian campaign, leading to severe casualties. This was due both to physiographic character of flysch rocks (Miocene in age), subject in autumnal rainy period to landslides and to the devastation of very poor road network, deprived by retreating Germans all the bridges. Despite excellent work of our sappers , building in very difficult conditions numerous Bailey bridges and repairing roads, significant part of casualties in this sector was due to accidents. Here again the supplies of infantry battalions, fighting in roadless hills , was realized by mule transport. The repaired but usually muddy roads, situated predominantly in valleys, could hardly enable the action of our armoured units and the transport of supplies. It should be stressed that thanks to the enveloping operation of our Corps in the mountains, the allied divisions could move forward along Via Emilia , reaching in Christmas time 1944 , similarly as our Corps, the Senio river. Here the offensive action of the 8th British Army was stopped, similarly as that of the American 5th Army in the Apennines south of Bologna. This decision was caused by the evacuation of several divisions from Italy to France and the necessity of preparation of the units to new methods of warfare in completely different physiographic conditions in southern part of the Po lowland.
During the battle of Bologna, the units of the Polish 2ndn Corps , prepared to new physiographic conditions and methods of warfare ,had to cross seven rivers and several irrigation canals. Since the southern part of Po lowland , covered by fertile mostly clayey alluvial deposits is the post important agricultural region in Italy, all the rivers and cana;ls are protected by floodbanks. Germans, taking the opportunity of three month interval in offensive action, had fortified all these banks in bunkers, minefields and barbed wire entanglements. This total fortified rivers-canals system should be successively captured Therefore, the new 8th Army commander gen. Mac Creery , being a specialist of armoured arms ,had introduced into the action new special units . equipped with such type of tanks as Churchill bridging Ark , Churchill flamethrower Crocodile, Sherman Flail destroying minefields, Sherman with fascine used to fill the water obstacles and anti-aircraft searchlights to blind the crews of bunkers., Thanks to such well prepared offensive, the casualties of allied troops were rather negligible and Bologna was captured after eleven days. Our Corps was divided into two groups: one advancing toward Bologna along Via Emilia, commanded by gen. K. Rudnicki and called “RUD” and second, more armoured and mobile, commanded by gen. B. Rakowski (called “RAK”), performing enveloping maneuver to surround Bologna from the north. The first allied unit that entered the center of Bologna was the 9th Battalion of Carpathian Division, named by our Command “Boloński”. Its chaplain have put the Polish national flag at the highest tower of Boilogna Torre dei Asinelli.This symbolic act had closed the glorious combat trail of the 2nd Polish Corps in Italy.
Battle of Bologna in the Romagna Lowland (Figs. 16,17,18,19,20,21)
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Physiographic diversity of battlefields of the 2nd Polish Corps in Italian campaign 1944-45
By Wojciech Narębski
Introduction (Figs. 1, 2)
Unlike monographs on the operations of the 2nd Polish Corps in Italy published in Great Britain containing detailed maps of battlefields, the present domestic editions on this subject are very poor.
They contain many mistakes in geographic names and often render detailed descriptions of these operations rather abstract for today’s readers. In this short report I would like to illustrate very briefly the neglected problem of very diversified physiographic character of terrains of Polish battlefields during four stages of the Italian campaign as a veteran of the 2nd Corps and geoscientist.