World Battlefronts: Anticlimax

Fifth Army headquarters in Italy had confidently announced that the Gothic Line was pierced in the center. But some how the Germans were not running. Some how there seemed to be more mountains just ahead. Somehow the Fifth was just inching along.

Part of the explanation was filthy weather — cold, autumn rain that fouled up artillery observation, left tanks struggling soggily with the mud, kept planes dripping idly on the ground, made cursing doughboys fight and sleep in the cold and wet. Even the mules, the only transport to front lines in the...

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