Mediterranean and North Africa · United States, British Commonwealth, Poland, Brazil and Italian partisans vs Germany
Spring 1945 offensive in Italy
6 April 1945 – 2 May 1945
The final Allied offensive broke through the Argenta Gap and the Apennines, took Bologna and trapped Army Group C south of the Po. Partisans rose in the northern cities and the German surrender took effect on 2 May.
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Day by day
— Comacchio
The offensive opens on the flanks. Commandos and the 56th Division have cleared the spit between Lake Comacchio and the sea in five days of fighting, and on the 5th Fifth Army attacked up the Ligurian coast to pull German reserves west. Von Vietinghoff holds the Senio with twenty-three divisions and almost no fuel to move them.
— Across the Senio
Eighth Army attacks at 13:50 behind 825 heavy bombers and 1,500 guns, and the infantry cross the Senio floodbanks at 19:20 behind flame-throwing tanks. V Corps takes Lugo and the Polish II Corps drives on Imola; by the 12th the Santerno has gone too and the 56th Division is coming over the Comacchio floods in amphibians.
— The mountains and the gap
Fifth Army attacks in the Apennines at 09:45, the 10th Mountain Division and the Brazilians going for the ridges west of the Bologna road and II Corps joining on the 16th. On the Adriatic flank the 78th Division forces the Argenta Gap, the strip of dry ground between the floods and the Reno, and by the 18th the armour is through it into open country.
— Bologna
The Poles enter Bologna at six in the morning, the US 34th Division and the Italian Friuli group behind them. Hitler had refused von Vietinghoff permission to withdraw to the Po and the refusal has cost him his armies: both are now falling back across open ground with Allied fighter-bombers over the crossings.
— The Po
The 10th Mountain Division reaches the Po at San Benedetto and is across on the 23rd; Eighth Army closes up on Ferrara. Every bridge is down, so the German armies leave their guns, tanks and lorries on the south bank and swim or ferry what men they can. South of the river Army Group C ceases to exist as an organised force.
— Surrender
The northern cities rise before the armies reach them: Milan and Turin on 25 April, Genoa on the 27th, where the German garrison surrenders to the partisans. Mussolini is caught on the Como shore and shot on the 28th. The instrument signed in secret at Caserta on 29 April takes effect at 14:00 on 2 May, and just under a million men in Italy and western Austria lay down their arms.
