Monte Castello

FactsBattle fact sheet

Move 1The position: a piece that does not stand alone

The Brazilian Expeditionary Force arrived in Italy in 1944 and went into the line within the U.S. 5th Army, facing the Gothic Line, the belt of fortifications the Germans had built across the Apennines. The Allied target was Bologna, the gateway to the Po Valley. Monte Castello commanded one of the valleys that led there: whoever held the top saw every truck and every patrol moving below.

Seen from afar, it looked like an isolated target. It was not. Monte Castello is the last link in a chain of heights — Riva Ridge, Monte Belvedere, Gorgolesco, Della Torraccia and, finally, Castello. Together they form a wall, and each one covers the next. Whoever climbs Castello head-on takes direct fire from above and, at the same time, fire from the peaks alongside, the ones he is not attacking.

In chess, it is the rook that looks unprotected until the next move, when you discover the bishop on the other side of the board defending the square.

Move 2The pieces: the pracinha and the defense as a system

The Brazilian soldier fought with American equipment: the Garand semiautomatic rifle, the Browning automatic rifle in the squad, mortars, and the Brazilian divisional artillery behind. On his shoulder, the badge of the smoking snake, born of a mocking saying that went around the country before the troops shipped out.

On the other side stood the German 232nd Infantry Division, under Lieutenant General Eccard Freiherr von Gablenz. The defense was not a handful of soldiers on the top, it was an arrangement: observation posts on the heights, which watched more than they fired and passed coordinates to the mortars and artillery; bunkers on the slopes with their machine guns pointed sideways, each one covering the other's approach; mines and wire on the obvious routes up, to hold the attacker still on open ground.

The machine gun was the MG 42, with an average rate of fire of around 1,200 rounds per minute. The pracinhas called it lurdinha. But the strongest piece in the sector was not the weapon, it was the design: a defense with few men that held because each strongpoint protected its neighbor's flank. The price of that design was also in plain sight — knock out one point, and the others are exposed.

Move 3November: attacking the piece with the flank open

On 24 and 25 November 1944, Brazilian troops — the Reconnaissance Squadron and the 3rd Battalion of the 6th Infantry Regiment — attack Monte Castello together with U.S. Task Force 45. The attacks are thrown back.

On the night of 28 November, the Germans counterattack and retake Monte Belvedere, the peak next door. The following day, the 29th, the FEB attacks Castello again, now with its flank exposed to exactly the height that had just been lost. The fire comes from above, as expected, and from the side, where it should not have come from. There is no cover on the slope against both at once. The attack stops.

It is the move that defines the campaign: trying to capture a piece whose defense has just been reinforced on the opponent's previous move.

Move 4December: the same play, with the weather against it

On 12 December 1944 comes a new attempt, in the rain, with mud taking over the slope and the closed-in weather hampering observation and fire support. The FEB falls back once again.

After that, the Apennine winter shuts down the front: snow, fog, mud and below-freezing temperatures for weeks, for men who in large part were seeing snow for the first time. Monte Castello stays German.

Move 5The diagnosis: the target was wrong

All these attacks tried to take one piece while the ones protecting it stayed on the board. They climbed the hill leaving standing precisely what made the hill difficult. It was an attack on the symptom, not on the system — and with a small force, little preparation time and, on 29 November, an uncovered flank.

It was not a matter of courage or of the quality of the troops: U.S. Task Force 45 was also thrown back on the same hill, on the same days.

The defender had read the board better. Retaking Belvedere on the eve of the 29 November attack shows that the Germans knew where the strength of the position lay: in the neighboring peaks, which kept the crossfire on Castello's slope. As long as the attacker looked only at the summit, each assault would be a climb up a corridor swept from two sides.

Move 6February: Operation Encore takes the chain apart

The correction comes in February 1945, with Operation Encore. The offensive no longer aims at one hill, it aims at the whole chain, and in the right order. In comes the U.S. 10th Mountain Division, trained at Camp Hale, Colorado, between November 1942 and June 1944, in skiing, rock and ice climbing and high-altitude survival.

On the night of 18 to 19 February, the men of the 10th climb the cliffs of Riva Ridge in the dark, a face the Germans considered too steep to be climbed — and therefore guarded poorly. They take the crest by surprise. Then Monte Belvedere falls, then Gorgolesco.

For the first time in almost three months, Monte Castello stands alone on the board.

Move 721 February: check

On 21 February 1945, after the artillery preparation, the Uzeda, Franklin and Siseno Sarmento Battalions climb Monte Castello. The flanking fire that had broken up the earlier attacks no longer exists: the positions that fired from the side are now held by Allied troops.

Even so, it is not quick. It takes hours of fighting up the slope, bunker by bunker, with the defense holding out all day. At 17:30, the Franklin Battalion reaches the summit. Monte Castello belongs to the FEB.

What the capture delivered goes beyond the hill. The FEB comes out of February with real experience of mountain combat, and in the following weeks it advances as a veteran force — the same one that, in April 1945, would face Montese.

VerdictWhy it ended the way it did

MythsWhat is told and what the record shows

• What is told

  The FEB took Monte Castello alone, in an isolated feat of courage.

  What the record shows

  It was a combined operation. The capture on 21 February 1945 depended on what the U.S. 10th Mountain Division did beforehand on the neighboring peaks, starting on the night of 18 to 19 February.

• What is told

  The Brazilians failed in 1944 because they were inferior troops.

  What the record shows

  U.S. Task Force 45 was also thrown back at Monte Castello, in the attacks of 24 and 25 November 1944. What defeated the attackers was the crossfire from the neighboring heights, not the nationality of the troops.

• What is told

  There were exactly six attacks — or exactly four.

  What the record shows

  The sources differ: the Portuguese Wikipedia speaks of six, the Army Blog of four attempts before the capture. The difference depends on counting 24 and 25 November as one attack or two and on including smaller actions. The firm dates are 24, 25 and 29 November and 12 December 1944.

• What is told

  The MG 42 got the nickname lurdinha because its rhythm recalled the chatter of a soldier's jealous fiancée.

  What the record shows

  The nickname lurdinha, given by the pracinhas, is attested. The fiancée explanation is folklore with no firm source.

QuestionsFrequently asked questions

SourcesSources

1. Batalha de Monte Castello, Portuguese Wikipedia — pt.wikipedia.org
2. A Tomada de Monte Castello pela Força Expedicionária Brasileira, Brazilian Army Blog — eblog.eb.mil.br
3. Battle of Monte Castello, English Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
4. MG 42, English Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
5. Climb to Glory: The 10th Mountain Division's Ski and Mountain Troops, National WWII Museum — nationalww2museum.org
6. Camp Hale, Colorado: Training the 10th Mountain Division During World War II, The Unwritten Record, National Archives — unwritten-record.blogs.archives.gov
7. Pracinhas: qual a origem da expressão 'a cobra vai fumar', Aventuras na História — aventurasnahistoria.com.br
8. Mascarenhas de Moraes, J. B. A FEB pelo seu comandante
9. Maximiano, C. C. Barbudos, Sujos e Fatigados
10. Official history of the United States Army on the North Apennines campaign

Images

• Fig. 01 — An American war correspondent interviews Brazilian infantrymen on the front line in Italy, December 1944.: U.S. Army Signal Corps · Public domain
• Fig. 02 — FEB troops on the march; the handwritten note on the original identifies Monte Castelo in the background.: Força Expedicionária Brasileira · Public domain
• Fig. 03 — Map of enemy defenses no. 6, from the U.S. IV Corps, dated 19 February 1945: German positions surveyed by aerial photography up to 15 February, with a legend in English and Portuguese.: U.S. Army, IV Corps (G-2) · Public domain
• Fig. 04 — Soldiers of the U.S. 10th Mountain Division with ski equipment, 1943, during the training period.: U.S. Army · Public domain
• Fig. 05 — The village of Corona, just below the crest of Monte Belvedere, taken by the 10th Mountain Division in February 1945.: U.S. Army Signal Corps · Public domain
• Fig. 06 — Brazilian infantrymen read their mail in the trenches of the Italian front.: U.S. Army Signal Corps · Public domain