FIFTH ARMY HISTORY

THE month of August 1944 found the troops of Fifth Army, under the command of Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, poised along the south bank of the Arno River on a 35-mile front extending from Marina di Pisa on the Ligurian coast to the Elsa River, 20 miles west of Florence. (See Map No. 1.) After the capture of Rome on 4 June, the advance of Fifth Army had been spectacular. By 18 July it had driven the Germans over 150 miles up the west coast of the Italian peninsula to capture the strategic port of Leghorn, and its advance patrols had reached the Arno. The Army then had devoted the succeeding weeks to consolidating its posi‐tions along the south bank of the Arno and reorganizing, training, and resting its troops in preparation for future operations. The British Eighth Army, advancing through the central and eastern portion of the peninsula, had occupied the por‐tion of Florence south of the Arno on 4 August, completed the work of securing the remainder of the river line in the next few days, and brought its lagging right flank up the Adriatic coast beyond the port of Ancona. By mid-August, with the excep‐tion of the Eighth Army right flank, the line Pisa—Rimini, which had been estab‐lished as the objective of the Allied spring drive, had largely been reached. From the low hills south of the Arno our troops could look across the broad Arno Plain to the serrated peaks of the Northern Apennines, the last mountain barrier blocking the approaches to the Po Valley. Once across the mountains, Fifth Army could hope for an early end to the long and arduous Italian campaign.

Takes Mount Monticelli,The Assault on II Giogo Pass,Defense of Mount Battaglia,Attack on Radicosa Pass,

Mount delle Formiche,Assault on Mount Grande,The Arno Line,Attack on Radicosa,Santerno Valley,Takes Mount Monticelli