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The 88th Infantry Division was activated
at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma on 15 July 1942 under
the command of Major General John E. Sloan. On
that day, standing on the dusty, hot parade ground,
on behalf of the fledgling Division, General Sloan
accepted the challenge from the President of the
88th Division Veterans Association to, “take
up the job we didn’t get done.”
In response, referring to the Great
War veterans present, General Sloan assured
onlookers that, “their faith will be sustained,
their record maintained and the glory of the
colors never will be sullied as long as one
man of the 88th still lives.”
It was a solemn and demanding pledge,
but one that the men of the 88th would keep
through some of the hardest-fought battles of
the Second World War.
General Sloan drove the soldiers of
the 88th hard, from activation throughout all
of its pre-deployment training. Comprised overwhelmingly
of draftees, after basic training for the Division’s
recruits, small unit training was conducted
at Camp Gruber. Next, the 88th participated
in Third Army Louisiana Maneuvers #3 from mid-June
1943, and moved to Fort Sam Houston, Texas,
in late August before staging Camp Patrick Henry,
Virginia in November. From the Hampton Roads
Port of Embarcation, the 88th sailed for North
Africa, arriving in Casablanca, French Morocco,
on 15 December.
The Division next moved to Algeria
just before the end of the year, and conducted
intensive training for employment in Italy.
Under the command of the Assistant Division
Commander, Brigadier General Paul W. Kendall,
an advance party departed for Italy on 26 December,
and went into the line as observers on 4-5 January,
attached to 3rd, 34th, and 36th Infantry Divisions,
and the British 5th, 46th, and 56th Divisions.
On 3 January 1944, a member of this advance
echelon became the 88th’s first KIA when
Sergeant William A. Streuli of Paterson, New
Jersey (A forward observer in B/339th Field
Artillery Battalion) was killed by fragments
from a bomb dropped by a Luftwaffe aircraft
in the 34th Infantry Division sector. Lieutenant
Elwin Ricketts, Battery B Executive Officer,
became the first WIA when he was wounded in
the same attack.
The main body of the 88th was transported
to Italy in early February 1944, arriving in
the Naples area in increments as they were ferried
across from Oran, Algeria. The first Division
unit into the line was 2nd Battalion, 351st
Infantry, which relieved elements of the Texas
Division’s 141st Infantry Regiment near
Cervaro on 27 February. Early the next day,
firing in support of a French unit, the first
artillery round fired in combat by an 88th DIVARTY
unit was sent downrange by Battery C, 913th
Field Artillery Battalion. Its target was a
registration point at the Monte Cassino Abbey,
the rubble of which was occupied by the Germans
after the Allies bombed it, and not before.
The entire Division moved into the
line on 4 March, and at 1000 hours on 5 March
1944 assumed responsibility for the sector previously
occupied by the British 5th Division. At the
same time, the 88th came under the control of
the British X Corps, and deployed its three
infantry regiments on line from the Mediterranean
into the foothills to the east. Opposing the
88th in the strong fortified positions of the
Gustav Line, were the German 71st and 94th Infantry
Divisions.
The Blue Devil infantry spent the next
two months occupying and improving defensive
positions and patrolling, while DIVARTY fired
harassing and interdiction missions at German
positions and suspected and known lines of communication.
At 2300 on 11 May, American, British,
British Commonwealth, French, and Polish guns
began a massive barrage, behind which the entire
Allied front in Italy began their last attack
on the Gustav Line. Finally, the first US Army
division comprised primarily of draftees would
be tested in the crucible of a major operation.
In less than an hour, the 350th Infantry
Regiment captured Mt. Damiano, key terrain overlooking
the flank of the French units attacking on the
Division’s right. In that action, Staff
Sergeant Charles W. Shea of F/350th took charge
of his platoon after the platoon leader was
killed and the platoon sergeant was wounded,
and led an assault which knocked the defenders
out of their well-prepared positions. For his
actions that day, Staff Sergeant Shea became
the first Blue Devil to earn the Medal of Honor.
The rest of the Division also pushed
hard and forced the stubborn foe off the Gustav
Line. The 351st Infantry stormed into Santa
Maria Infante and engaged in a particularly
bitter battle with the German defenders there.
After more than two days of vicious combat,
the 351st seized Santa Maria, and any doubts
that a well-trained “draftee division”
could fight as well as Regular Army or National
Guard units were dispelled.
As the 349th Infantry Regiment passed
through the 351st and continued the attack to
the north, the 88th’s operations took
on aspects of a pursuit, one of the most challenging—and
exhausting—missions possible for an infantry
unit in mountains. Yet the elements of the Division
doggedly pursued the withdrawing Germans, annihilating
them where they chose to stand, and chasing
them up and over the endless Italian hills.
Through towns like Itri, Fondi, and Roccgorga,
the Blue Devils drove on toward Rome, effectively
destroying the German 94th Infantry Division
in the process. So badly battered was the 94th
that it had to be withdrawn to Germany for reconstitution,
and did not return to combat until October.
Surging northward, elements of the
88th made contact with Allied units breaking
out of the Anzio beachhead on 29 May, and were
the first to enter the “Eternal City”—Rome—
on 4 June.
After the fall of Rome, the 88th was
pulled out of the line to refit and prepare
for subsequent operations. Those operations
began on 5 July, when the Division relieved
the 1st Armored Division in the vicinity of
Pomerance.
As the British, British Commonwealth,
and French colonial forces opened their drive
to the Germans’ next line of defense,
the Gothic Line above the River Arno, they attacked
on the east of the 88th toward Firenze. At the
same time, other US forces attacked toward Livorno
on the west coast. Between these, the 88th was
ordered to seize Volterra, an ancient Etruscan
fortress town with a spectacular view of its
approaches for miles around.
The Division attacked Volterra at 0500
on 8 July with the 349th and 350th Infantry
Regiments abreast, with the 351st in reserve.
Intending to envelop the objective from both
sides, the attack successfully drove the defenders
of the veteran 90th Panzer Grenadier Division
from their choice terrain. Volterra was secure
by 2200 hours.
While performing security duties on
the Division’s left flank, the 351st Infantry
Regiment unexpectedly ran into a hornet’s
nest near Laiatico on 9 July. Here, the regiment
encountered Grenadier Regiment 1060, an element
of the recently-disbanded 92nd Infantry Division
now attached to the 362nd Infantry Division,
as well as other elements of the 90th Panzer
Grenadiers. After being initially repulsed on
11 July, the regiment attacked again on the
12th with the 2nd and 3rd Battalions up and
the 1st in reserve. The 3rd Battalion tore into
the 1060th’s 1st Battalion, destroying
it and killing the enemy battalion commander.
By the early morning of 13 July, all regimental
objectives were secure; for its part in the
attack, the 3rd Battalion, 351st Infantry Regiment
was later awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation.
By 25 July, the Fifth Army’s
offensive power had been spent; the loss of
VI Corps and its veteran 3rd, 36th, and 45th
Infantry Divisions to the impending invasion
of Southern France prevented it from continuing
the drive further to the north. The removal
of the French Expeditionary Corps for participation
in the same operation also diminished Allied
combat power in Italy. Above the Arno, the units
of the Germans’ Army Group Southwest were
finishing their preparations for defense of
the Gothic Line, and the Allied forces of the
US Fifth and British Eighth Armies were going
to require every ounce of power they could muster
to breach the heavily fortified line in the
mountains that ran from the Ligurian coast in
the east to the Adriatic in the west.
Perhaps the most significant change
in the 88th’s history to that point occurred
in August 1944, when Major General Sloan was
transferred first to a hospital in Italy, then
to the States for treatment of a recurring disease.
General Sloan had built the division from activation
through all of its training, and had led the
88th into combat. A tough and demanding trainer,
his insistence on excellence had paid off in
victory and saved lives…and proven that
the US Army’s divisions made up primarily
of conscripts—the largest category of
units, just coming into the line in 1944—could
be highly effective on the battlefield.
General Sloan was succeeded by the
Division’s Assistant Commander, Brigadier
General Paul W. Kendall. Kendall had served
with the 88th through stateside training and
had established a very visible presence throughout
the Division’s combat to that point. His
succession to Division command seemed only natural
to the most of the Blue Devils, and while General
Sloan would be missed, the turbulence inevitably
created by the departure of any respected and
experienced leader was certainly greatly attenuated
by General Kendall’s assumption of command.
Allied forces in Italy attacked toward
the Gothic Line on 10 September, and penetrated
it in the central and Adriatic sectors, but
the Germans remained ensconced in their mountain
fortifications in the west, and it was up to
the Blue Devils to drive them out in their zone.
The Division’s history, The Blue Devils
in Italy, sums up the Gothic Line assault this
way....
| Each veteran and survivor has
his own personal tale of horror, his own
nightmare of those forty-four days and nights
which blended together in one long drawn-out
hell. It has been said that ‘all the
mornings were dark, all the days were just
different colors of gray and all the nights
were black.’ And all the time up in
those mountains north of Florence was just
borrowed time. The terrain was so rough
the Germans figured that no troops in the
world could get through the few heavily
defended mountain passes. But the Blue Devils
made it, through the passes or over the
mountain tops. The weather was so bad that
the Germans thought no foot soldiers or
vehicles could possibly operate in the mud
and slime. But the Blue Devils walked and
rode through the worst of it. The defenses
and concrete, mined emplacements were so
formidable that the Germans estimated they
were impregnable. But the Blue Devils stormed
and shattered the biggest and the best of
them. |
Perhaps the most spectacular fighting
of that raw, rainy autumn took place on three
craggy mountain peaks in late September and
early October. On 27 September, elements of
the 350th Infantry Regiment linked up with Italian
partisans and occupied Mt. Battaglia without
opposition. However, over the next six days,
the “Green Devils” of the German
1st Parachute Division attacked fiercely and
without surcease in an effort to seize this
key terrain. Their efforts were in vain, however,
as the 350th committed everything it had, including
headquarters clerks, and threw back every assault
to retain the critical mountain top. Casualties
were grave—50% of the regiment, with all
but one company commander killed or wounded—and
acts of extraordinary valor had been almost
common. For its part in the brutal fighting
on Mt. Battaglia, the 2nd Battalion, 350th Infantry
was later awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation,
and for his gallantry and intrepidity—at
the cost of his life—Captain Robert Roeder,
CO of Company G, was awarded the Medal of Honor.
While the 350th was grimly holding
on to Mt. Battaglia, the 349th Infantry Regiment
was attacking the village of Belvedere enroute
to its objective, Mt. Grande. At Belvedere,
it earned laurels of its own, if from a distinctly
different source. Referring to the 349th’s
assault, a German officer captured in the fighting
there remarked to his captors that, “In
nine years of service, I have fought in Poland,
Russia, and Italy—never have I seen such
spirit I would be the proudest man in the world
if I could command a unit such as the one which
took Belvedere.” Few comments could be
more telling than a profound compliment from
an opponent. Even as the “Kraut Killers”
(349th) and “Battle Mountain” (350th)
regiments were engaged in these ferocious and
costly actions, the 351st Infantry Regiment
was locked in its own ferocious struggle for
Mt. Capello. As the author of The Blue Devils
in Italy put it, “The battle for Capello…was
a struggle between German soldiers who would
not withdraw and American troops who would not
be stopped.” The fighting raged for days,
sometimes literally at bayonet point,until the
1st and 2nd Battalions secured the top of the
mountain. For its part in the battle, the 2nd
Battalion, 351st Infantry Regiment was later
awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation.
Opposed by elements of the Luftwaffe’s
elite 1st Parachute Division (the defenders
of Monte Cassino earlier in the year), the 88th
slugged forward through seemingly endless mountains
toward the Po Plain. In the total of 44 days
of rain, mud, terror, ferocity, and blood that
was the campaign in the North Appenines for
the Blue Devils, there were many tactical victories,
but no ultimate operational success. Like the
rest of the fighting elements of the Fifth Army,
the Division’s soldiers were just too
exhausted to push further. Company G, 351st
came closest to breaking through, but was literally
wiped out at Vedriano, on the very verge of
the Po Valley southeast of Bologna, on 24 October.
The 88th went over to the defensive
in late October and patrolled, improved positions,
and rehabilitated its combat troops as best
it could through the oncoming winter of 1944-45.
The Division relieved the 85th Infantry Division
in its sector on 22 November, and was in turn
itself relieved for general rehabilitation on
13 January.
After a brief interval out of the line,
the Blue Devils were again committed on 24 January
in relief of the 91st Infantry Division near
Loiano and Livergnano. After more patrolling
and maintenance of defensive positions, the
Division was pulled out of the line again for
further rehabilitation, but also special training
intended to prepare it for the impending spring
offensive.
That offensive, which would finally
defeat the Wehrmacht in Italy, commenced on
April Fool’s Day with a supporting attack
by the 92nd Infantry Division on the Ligurian
coast in the west to draw German forces away
from the point of the impending main effort.
Another supporting attack, in much
greater strength, was launched by the British
Eighth Army on the Adriatic coast on 9 April.
Finally, with the German reserves being decisively
committed to meet these attacks at the extreme
ends of the line in Italy, on 14 April, Fifth
Army jumped off in the main attack against the
German center.
The 88th’s attack began at 2230
hours on 15 April, as its infantry regiments
lunged toward Monterumici. In two days of fearsome
fighting, the Blue Devils knocked the German
defenders off the key ridge; they could not
have known it at the time, but the German defense
of Monterumici was the last well-organized resistance
that the 88th would encounter.
Once past Monterumici, the 88th was
on its way across the Po and to the Alps. Verona
fell on 25 April, followed by Vicenza three
days later. German forces in Italy surrendered
on 2 May, although it took until early the next
day to notify all Blue Devil units of the capitulation.
On 4 May, elements of the 349th Infantry Regiment
linked up with units from the 103rd Infantry
Division’s 409th Infantry Regiment coming
down from Austria—where German forces
had yet to surrender—in the Brenner Pass,
marking the long-sought union of Allied forces
attacking from Italy with those which had originally
landed in France and fought their wary through
the Reich.
The Blue Devil Division’s accomplishments
in its 344 days in combat reflect the valor,
commitment, and unwavering devotion to duty
of its soldiers. Not on ly did the 88th earn
high praise from the likes of General Mark Clark,
Commanding General of Fifth Army and a widely-recognized
hard taskmaster, but it was even grudgingly
admired by experienced enemy senior officers.
Generalmajor Karl-Lothar Schulz, Commanding
General of the famed 1st Parachute Division
and one of only 159 recipients of the Knight’s
Cross with Oak Leaf and Swords, told his interrogators,
“the 88th Division is the best Division
we have ever fought against.” A written
estimate of enemy unit effectiveness prepared
by German intelligence echoed Schulz’s
sentiments. It rated the 88th, “a very
good division with excellent fighting material.”
It also noted that after VI Corps departed for
France that the 88th was “the best US
division in Italy,” with “very good
leadership.”
In its 344 days of combat, the 88th
Infantry Division lost 2,298 men killed in action
(258 more died of wounds) and 9,225 men wounded.
Although the cost was high, the Blue Devils—as
the first of the “draftee divisions”
to see combat—proved that well-trained,
well-led American citizen-soldiers were equal
or superior to anything the vaunted Wehrmacht
could muster, under even the most arduous of
circumstances. With the victory to which they
contributed so much accomplished, their General
Sloan’s pledge to keep faith with the
Division’s veterans and to uphold the
Division’s standards was fulfilled.
Sources.
Delaney, John P. The Blue Devils in
Italy. Washington, D.C.: The Infantry Journal
Press, 1947.
Griess, Thomas (ed.) The Second World
War: Europe and the Mediterranean. Wayne, New
Jersey: Avery Publishing Group, 1989.
Madej, W. Victor. German Army Order
of Battle: Field Army and Officer Corps, 1939-1945.
Game Publishing Company, Allentown, Pennsylvania,
1985.
—. Hitler's Dying Ground: Description
and Destruction of the German Army. Game Publishing
Company, Allentown, Pennsylvania, 1985.
—. Hitler's Elite Guards: Waffen-SS,
Parachutists, U-Boats. Game Publishing Company,
Allentown, Pennsylvania., 1985.
Schmitz, Peter and Klaus-Jürgen
Thies. Die Truppenkennzeichen der Verbände
und Einheiten der deutschen Wehrmacht und Waffen-SS
und ihre Einsätze im Zweiten Weltkrieg
1939-1945. Band I: Das Heer. (The Unit Insignia
of the Organizations and Units of the German
Armed Forces and Waffen-SS and their Operations
in the Second World War, 1939-1945. Volume I:
The Army.) Osnabrück, Niedersachsen, Germany,
1987.
Stanton, Shelby. Order of Battle: U.S.
Army, World War II. Novato, California: Presidio
Press, 1984.
Monthly Operations Reports, 349th,
350th, and 351st Infantry Regiments, April 1944
- April 1945.
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