Notes about April, 1945 (Part 3 of 3)

After he was rested, Vernon woke up at 8AM on the morning of April 24, 1945, and traveled 15 miles North.  He was still most likely attached to the 91st Infantry Division.  While the 85th and 88th Infantry Divisions headed north to the town of Verona, the 91st headed North by Northeast to the town of Vicenza.  He then spent the next couple of days trying to cross the Po River.

The bridges over the Po had been deliberately destroyed by the Axis Forces.  As Vernon was attached to a tank Battalion, the solution was not to simply swim the river.  It took the army corps of engineers a couple days to cross the Po.  At 5:05 PM on April 26, 1945, Vernon and the 757th Tank finally crossed the Po.  He then travelled 15 miles north to the town of Legnago Italy, and slept for the night.

Legnago was considered the Eastern flank of the Adige Line. Remember from my earlier post that the Adige Line was the northern-most defenses of the Axis forces.  It was heavily-fortified with trenches, dugouts, and machine-gun emplacements that were "reminiscent of World War I." (Source: Po Valley, 1945 Online).  If the Axis forces had failed to adequately defend their first two fortified lines, it stood to reason that they would most likely hold onto the Adige Line as long as they could.  Protecting this territory would allow them the ability to retreat into the protection of the Austrian Alps.

Generals Truscott and Keyes decided to send some units across the Adige River at Legnago.  They personally observed the crossing because they wanted to guage the level of resistance the Allied forces would face.  They reasoned that if the Axis were to put up a strong fight, then clearly their motivations were to make a stand and protect the Adige, while the bulk of their forces retreated into the Austrian Alps.  If they encountered little resistance at the crossing, then it stood to reason that the Axis troops were on the verge of surrenduring.

On the morning of the 27th, Vernon crossed the Adige and made no special note about enemy fire.  Generals Truscott and Keyes must have been elated.  They would have known clearly that the enemy was in full-on retreat mode, but the men of the 757th didn't, and they were still expecting to "fight all the way up" to Vicenza.  After a couple weeks of constant fighting, Vernon observes that the 757th only has eight tanks left.

They fought their way all the way to Vicenza, and rested near the outskirts of town.  They met heavy resistance in towns along the way, and were constantly on guard.  Early the morning of the 29th (3AM) they started moving and a couple hours later came under heavy fire.  One of their tanks was taken out by bazooka blast, and three men were injured.  All the wounded were evacuated back to Vicenza, while the 757th continued on.

Later in the day they came to the Brenta River.  They had to wait patiently while engineers used ducks to ferry troops across.  [A note - I corrected what I thought was a typo in his journal.  He wrote "DUKW."  Turns out he was right - There is an article here about DUKW vehicles.]  They then crossed the Brenta and rested.  They were to set out with the 85th Infantry in the month of May to close off the Brenner pass near Bolzano to the North.

The story of the rest of the campaign will continue with May's post, but there are a few interesting historical things that need to be noted.

1 - Vernon notes on April 29th that they took 72 prisoners.  He seems a bit shocked at how many prisoners they captured.  The whole story of this campaign is one of Axis surrender.  The Allies pounded the tar out of these guys.  Pictures like the one below depict a common occurrence:

2 - On April 28, 1945, Mussolini and his mistress were summarily executed.  The next day in Milan, their bodies were dropped in a square in Milan along with 15 other fascist leaders.  They were then strung up and put on display for the partisans to walk by and spit upon.  It was a rather grisly affair.  While Vernon was clearly not in Milan that day, he does have pictures of the event in his collection.  From what I've gathered, some enterprising Italians took pictures of the dead leader and his mistress, made several copies, and sold the copies to American GIs.  Below are the copies Vernon most likely purchased (notice that that they were polite enough to tie Mussolini's Mistress' skirt up):

3 - On April 28th the U.S. Army was in negotiations for the unconditional surrendur of Axis forces at Caserta, Italy.  Negotiations had not been completed by the end of April, so for troops on the ground this meant little or nothing - they kept fighting.

4 - April 30, 1945 was the day that Hitler committed suicide. 

5 - The document in his collection titled "757th Tank Battalion" reads:

16 Apr-30 Jun 45: Offensive opened 16 April supported by every available direct fire weapon including tanks.  Enemy resistance was strong during the first days of the attack.  All movements encountered heavy resistance from bazookas, machine guns, and mine fields, but the advance continued steadily through the enemy's main line of resistance.  By 20 April the Germans were being driven from their fortifications and were retreating to the north.  The attack moved rapidly and by 20 April the tank-infantry elements broke out of the mountains and pursued the Germans across the valley toward the Po River, wholesale enemy surrenders occured.  The southern bank of the Po River was cleared of enemy except for a few pockets (25-26 Apr). The Bn fired in support of Po River crossing. After crossing the river the attack continued to the north..."

And thus ends the month of April!