FIFTH ARMY'S FRONT LINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24876, 24 April 1944, Page 3

FIFTH ARMY'S FRONT LINE

WINTER ORDEAL IN THE MOUNTAINS AN ALMOST INACCESSIBLE SECTOR

j3y CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY,

London Daily Telegraph's War Correspondent in Italy,

This is written in the front line among the men —the infantry who are doing the actual lighting in the Fifth Army's extreme forward positions in the mountains. It may help those who read it to understand what the infantry's conditions of life are like and why progress has been so slow in Italy this winter. In the sector I have been visiting beyond the Garigliano our forward positions are certainly no more than three miles —perhaps less in a straight line — from the river, lint those three miles take more than three and a-half hours of hard climbing on foot from the road. There is 110 other means of approach. When you have fully appreciated that fact you have gone a long way toward understanding the peculiar difficulties, the purely administrative and technical difficulties, of the Army in this winter campaign among the mountains. Neither car nor jeep will take you any nearer to our forward positions on that sector. You have to walk and climb the rest of the way. All supplies for the men in the mountains go that w y, too—ammunition, rations, water. You ascend a series of steep and slippery paths. You might bo out for a climb in the Lake District of England—the country is not dissimilar- —but the route which you must take, although its original basis is firm and rocky enough, is in many places covered by a thick deposit _of dark, slushy mud into which you sink ankle-deep at every step. Menace of Mines The mud is the colour and about the consistency of liquid milk chocolate. You soon learn that there are two requisites for climbing these tracks. One is to wear boots rather than shoes, since shoes are liable to be tugged right off by the mud. The other is to provide yourself with a staff, preferably taller and stouter than an ordinary walking-stick. Nearly all the men going up and down these hills have them unless their hands are full already, and it makes an enormous difference to the speed and sureness with which you can climb.

Most of these tents are pathetically makeshift affairs. It is not worth while to elaborate them, since a unit seldom stays more than a- week or two in precisely the same position in this sort or country. These waterproofs and tarpaulins, precariously secured by stakes or rocks, provide little more than a minimum of protection against the elements. That is perhaps the worst of all campaigning discomforts —the inability to be even reasonably dry for days on end. Everything is wet and clammy, body, clothing, blankets.. IS T o one needs to be told just how unpleasant that is when you know that you have no opportunity for days or weeks ahead of changing into dry clothes or having a warm bath. Theoretically these men ought all to be suffering from pneumonia, but in practice there has been remarkably little of it. There has been a certain amount of frostbite and a good many minor throat ailments, but far less than you would suppose, judging from the conditions under winch the men live and fight. On the whole the health of Army has remained remarkably unimpaired considering the long and gruelling winter campaign in which the troops have been engaged. "Rest" Period When a unit comes out of the line, usually after a spell of some 10 days to three weeks, and goes into rest for n period the degree of increased comfort will not be excessive. The troops I visited were due to come out of the line in a few days, but they would not go back more than two or three miles —only down to the foot of the hills. The men will be relieved from the constant strain of being under, or nearly under, enemy observation, and they will he able to change their clothes ami wash themselves all over —in the Garigliano. The ideal of the commander of the unit will be identical (though he would probably be surprised to hear it) with that of the minor 18th century pastoral poet—his name escapes me—who wrote: Grant mo, 0 Lord, I pray, a little farm, In summer sbady but in winter warm. If he gets that for his headquarters h© will be more than satisfied. For life becomes extremely elemental in these forward positions. It is a struggle as much with the basic forces of Nature as with the enemy. The machine, relatively speaking, counts for so little; the man for so much. Good temper, patience and ingenuity in devising minor gadgets to deal with day-to-day pi-oblems—-that is what counts. ITALY'S NEW RULER BIG TASK FOR UMBERTO HIS VIEWS ON GOVERNMENT SYDNEY, April 22 In Italy Inst November I asked a number of British, American and Italian officials, who were trying to inject some order into the confusion, what they thought of Umberto, Prince of Piedmont, writes Mr. Colin Bingham, a London correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald. The almost unanimous reply was that lie was a nonentity with even fewer desirable qualities than his father. To-day he is the future "Lieutenant of the Realm" in Italy, and has achieved the distinction of a column interview in the Times. This interview is interesting as revealing the increased emphasis on the culpability of "the whole nation" in acquiescing in Mussolini's rule —thereby diluting the responsibility of the monarchy—but even more interesting in its disclosure of Umberto's views on Italy's future. Seeking Stability The problem of the Allied controllers in Italy has been to balance the encouragement of "democratic thinking" with the necessity of preserving order behind our armies. Democratic thinking, and certainly democratic political organisation, could not be achieved without allowing some rights of political assembly and even agitation, coupled with publication of newspapers.

Of course, one would travel much faster and be drier-ankled if one avoided the beaten track and struck out across country. But even far back behind our front there are still plenty of undetected mines on the hillsides. Even the little "shoe mine" can neatly blow off a man's foot, and it is not worth it. Throughout my climb I noted a steady trickle of stretcher-bearers coming down the mountain slope. The men on the stretchers were "casualties" in the strictest and most literal sense of the word. They were not victims of any planned enemy assault or of any attack on our part. They were just the stray losses you suffer every day when the communique reports "All quiet" or "Calm prevailed on the Fifth Army front yesterday." One had been wounded by a stray shell, for intermittent shellfire never ceases. Another had trodden incautiously in a minefield. A third had been hit by a sniper when relieving a front-line post. Yet another ran into enemy wire while on night patrol. Just casualties. Bringing Out the Wounded it is a long. slow, painful business bringing these men down off the mountainside. Infantrymen act as stretcherbearers over the first stage up to the regimental aid post, which may be perhaps a mile behind the forward positions. There the most urgent cases receive immediate treatment, though there is not a great deal that can be done at that stage. Imagine trying to treat cases scientifically in pouring rain, with no cover except that afforded by a single tarpaulin cover, somewhere near the summit of Snowdon. Then the field ambulance bearers take over. These men work on a relay system. They are stationed at intervals for relief all the way down the mountainside. Each stretcher normally requires four bearers for greater security on these heights, and the average length of a stage is about a quarter of an hour's spell. Then a fresh relay takes over. That, in theory, is how it works, but when casualties are numerous there simply are not enough bearers for frequent reliefs. It is terribly slow going down these slopes of treacherous slime, where every step has to be consciously judged. They told me that it took about 12 hours to get the wounded by stretcher down from our forward positions to the road- and it might take eight hours more before they could be transferred by ambulance across the river to the casualty clearing station. It is a fearful ordeal even for the slightly wounded. Gentleness of Bearers 1 never see stretcher-bearers passing without being deeply impressed by the extraordinary gentleness with which they handle the wounded. They seem to know just how to avoid any sort of jolt to their load in places where the inexpert climber is continually slipping and floundering. Besides the stretcher-bearers, one passes a constant string of pack mules moving slowly uphill carrying ammunition and ration boxes. The mules are invaluable in this country, and we can never have too many of them. I suspect that any divisional commander would cheerfully swap a tank for a mule under present conditions. But in these hills one pretty soon reaches points where even mules cannot climb, and then they have to be unloaded and men have lo carry up the boxes on their shoulders over the steepest paths of all.

The slowness of the Allies in conceding these conditions was greatly criticised, not only by Italian Liberals, but also by British and American Liberals, as preventing that broadening of the Badoglio Government which both Britain and America had repeatedly declared they desired. Yet Umberto says it would have been better to have stuck to the Allied Military Government, or to have established an Italian Government "in rather a direct form." Umberto added: "Surely it is not in the interests of the Allies that the Italian people should be in a state of —• " Here ho broke of and mndf> a gesture intended to indicate turbulence or excitement.

In another part of the interview he said: "There are lot of Carabinieri in your prisoners of war camps whom we badly need to keep order and to 3iclp suppress the black market." Strong Control

The essential phrase in the whole interview is "Direct form of Italian Government." After all, this prince, whose coming ot age coincided roughly with the triumph of Fascism, has had little experience ot anything but "direct Italian Government." It was such a Government that prevented him from appearing in public except in the harmless role of a ski-runner. Umberto left his interviewer with the impression that he was a man "who had been brought up with strict regard for constitutional forms, but who nevertheless recognised the advantages of strong administrative control. He would respect every expression of his people's will which, was conveyed through Parliament and elections, but ho would look to the Carabinieri to prevent politics from erupting in the streets." If this estimate is correct there will be many anxious to see that the interval between his enthronement as 'Lieutenant of the Heal in" and the elections is made as short as possible. NEXT PHASE IN ITALY both sides preparing LONDON. April 22 All along the Italian front the opposing armies are preparing strenuously and in mass for the next and perhaps hnal phase, says the Daily Telegraph correspondent on the Cassino front. . -Meanwhile an uneasy calm prevails, - he adds. "German conservation ot shells is very marked. The Luftwaffe seems to have disappeared. The obvious explanation is the enemy's preoccupation with defensive plans both here and, more important, in the whole of western Lurope. '' ,e situation in Cassino is that we still hold Castle Hill and three-quarters of the town. All our positions, however, + °;; o,;ioo! « ,d by Monastery Hill, where the Germans remain firmly established 111 J a r "' !,s 0 ' f-l'o monastery. . Although most of our advanced positions in this area can be supplied only at night,, our troops are not only getting normal necessities, but their mail and chocolate and cigarette rations. "Castle Hill i« our most exposed outpost and there are indications that the may attempt to loosen our hold on it by counter-attack." SPECIAL ISSUE OF MEDALS CANBERRA, April 19 If the British Government is in agreement, a special issue of medals to all Australian armed personnel indicating the theatre of war in which they have served, will be made by the Commonwealth Government.

On the whole, even in these remote mountain positions, the business of keeping forward troops regularly supplied goes on astonishingly well. A unit in the line will have tinned bacon, biscuits, margarine and jam for breakfast, and at mid-day and in the evening either bully, steak-and-kidney pudding or tinned meat and vegetables (which eat equally well hot or cold), with more biscuits and margarine. And tea at very frequent intervals. The food can be heated almost in the face of the enemy on "tommy cookers," which burn methylated spirits and betray their presence by neither smoke nor flame. Makeshift Sleeping-quarters

Men going out on patrol or on a raid carry a compact two-day ration with them.

Mail in the ordinary way comes up by carrier daily from the road. The hearer, with his sack on his back and his staff in his hand, looks for all the world like Christian in "Pilgrim's Progress." Newspapers also arrive daily in theory, but it is seldom practicable to enable them to be passed round to all members of a scattered unit, and men in the line are out of touch with the news for days at a time.

How do they sloop? In houses, huts, tents, holes in the ground or on the bare, open hillside? Practically speaking, you can rule out the first two. You do" not find buildings, even sheep-pens, on these desolate mountains, and in the plains any sort of building near the forward position becomes a natural target for shellfire. (This is very different from the practice in Tunisia, where farms continued to enjoy a virtual immunity practically in the front line. There seemed, until the last month or so, to be some sort of tacit reciprocity in the matter.) No houses or huts, then. But, save in quite exceptional circumstances, all officers and men in the front line,whether their period of rest is night or, more probably, daytime, sleep in some sort or a tent.