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The Salerno invasion saw the Allies approach mainland Italy in a fierce amphibious assault during World War II. In between the chaos and the combat, however, a number of remarkable stories stand out.
Steadfast soldiers and courageous civilians combined in a Salerno POW escape saga worthy of Hollywood, while the Salerno mutiny saw misunderstanding and comradeship take a tragic turn.
From heroic acts of collective and individual bravery to wartime secrets more recently unearthed, we dive into the experiences of the real people who were there.
At Eighth Army Tactical Headquarters.
The Allied campaign to take mainland Italy began with a three-pronged attack at the country’s ‘heel’, hoping to defeat the Axis Powers as they had in North Africa and Sicily.
These amphibious landings aimed to capture key ports, tie down Axis forces and remove Italy from the war altogether:
General Harold Alexander led the Allied 15th Army in the invasion, which was made up of General Bernard Montgomery’s British 8th Army and General Mark Clark’s US 5th Army.
The Allied Landings in Italy, September 1943
The British 8th Army would split up and carry out Operation Baytown and Slapstick, while the US 5th Army prepared for the Salerno invasion.
While the US 5th Army approached battle in the Gulf of Salerno, the British 8th Army would begin their long advance north from Calabria to reunite the two armies.
Did you know?
From the start of the Salerno landings on September 9th, to October 1st, 1943, the number of Allied resources that crossed the beachhead came to:
Learn more about the Salerno Landings in Facts, Figures and Statistics
British airborne troops approaching Taranto in a landing craft, during the invasion of Italy, 14 September 1943.
As the British 8th Army marched from Calabria, it became clear that the road to Salerno would not be easy. During their retreat, the Germans made sure to sabotage the route north along the narrow peninsula, delaying the Allied advance by damaging roads and destroying key bridges and tunnels.
Nonetheless, the British 8th Army succeeded in marching an estimated 200 miles to join the US 5th Army, slowly but surely progressing through the demolished terrain left by the Germans.
Their painstaking advance put pressure on the German forces at Salerno, who knew they may be trapped if they were caught between Montgomery and Clark’s armies.
Despite this, General Clark was disappointed with how long it took!
By the time the armies regrouped in Auletta on September 19th, the crisis in Salerno was over, and the Germans had withdrawn north.
“Montgomery was supposed to bring thousands of British troops up from the south and meet them there [at Salerno]. In the American mind, Montgomery was going way too slow.”
- World War Two historian Bill Beigel
The mutiny at the Battle of Salerno is perhaps one of the lesser-known tales of the Italian campaign. In fact, a 75-year ban on official court martial papers buried the event for 50 years, until it was prematurely lifted in 1993.
So, what drove 191 men to disobey their orders on the coast of Salerno in September 1943?
The men were told they would be reunited with their units, who they knew were somewhere in Italy. Indeed, General Montgomery strongly believed that keeping men with their units as much as possible was key to maintaining morale. After all, these are the bonds that weld soldiers together and help keep their heads held high.
With that promise in their ears, the British 8th Army eagerly signed up.
HM King George VI rides with General Montgomery in Tripoli, 21 June 1943.
“The British Army was different from the US Army in that there was a lot of unit cohesion. Many of the British regiments had history going back centuries, and there was a tremendous amount of loyalty there, as well as loyalty to their officers.”
- Bill Beigel
However, rather than reuniting with their units as they were told, the men were instead sent to fight alongside Clark’s US 5th Army to support the Salerno invasion. When they arrived in Salerno, the emergency had already blown over and their services were no longer required. They were left in a field by the coast, waiting to be told what to do next.
Eventually, orders called for them to advance north, but almost 200 refused – mostly troops from the 50th Tyne Tees and 51st Highland Divisions.
It is important to note that these men were not shying away from the fight – they simply wished to fight with their own units. Their refusal to follow the order was in many ways a spontaneous response to what they thought had been a serious and genuine mistake.
“When they got to these other outfits, their unit cohesion was ruined,” Beigel explains, noting how much pride the men had in their units, some of whom had even fought together in World War I. “There was a definite affinity that these guys felt for their own military units.”
But mutiny was a capital offence, and those who refused their orders were held in a prisoner of war cage next to German prisoners, before being sent back to North Africa. Of the men who stood their ground, three sergeants, 16 corporals and approximately 170 additional men faced a court martial.
Salerno, 9 September 1943 (Operation Avalanche): British troops and vehicles from 128 Brigade, 46th Division are unloaded from LST 383 onto the beaches.
According to Begg, Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery admitted there had been an administrative error that brought the men to Salerno. Beigel describes the mistake as a result of “the fog of war”.
However, Begg’s request was ultimately refused. In the parliamentary debate, the then-Minister for the Armed Forces, John Spellar, stated that pardoning their mutiny would be a disservice to those who had obeyed orders, whether they agreed with them or not.
Kept secret until the end of World War II, the Salerno mutiny remains to this day the largest war-time mutiny in British military history.
Lieutenant-General Richard McCreery
Before the Allies could invade Salerno, the US Navy needed to clear mines from the gulf. It was essential to create safe pathways for landing craft, as well as operational areas for naval gunfire support ships.
Floating mines proved a particularly challenging challenge, obstructing ships as they approached the shore. Any mines left un-swept were at risk of delaying ships supporting the amphibious landing, or scuppering them altogether.
However, taking on the role of clearing mines was fraught with danger. One minesweeper ship, the U.S.S. Skill, was hit by a torpedo and sunk – suffering 72 casualties.
The courage needed to perform this crucial task can therefore not be underestimated.
Nonetheless, by the end of the battle, British and American minesweepers had cleared hundreds of mines from the Gulf of Salerno, potentially saving many more lives in the process.
The Royal Navy during the Second World War Motor Minesweeper J 636 underway in British coastal waters.
Did you know?
In July 1943, Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was removed and Marshal Pietro Badoglio was appointed in his place.
By August, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and the new Badoglio government were engaging in secret negotiations arranging Italy’s surrender to the Allies. They announced their new armistice agreement one day before the Salerno invasion.
These secret negotiations helped inform the Allied attack of the port of Taranto in Operation Slapstick. Meanwhile, valuable intelligence on Axis defences, mines and potential landing points came from sources such as:
Major General Dwight Eisenhower
By the time the Italian armistice was declared on 8th September 1943, approximately 80,000 Allied prisoners of war (POWs) were being held captive in Italy.
The incredible true story of two such POWs who mounted their own ‘great escape’ took place around this very time, with the bravery and generosity of local Italian families coming to their aid.
Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Simms served in the Long Range Desert Group, a British reconnaissance and raiding unit. He was caught while behind enemy lines in Libya, in January 1942.
Simms was shipped to a POW camp in the Salerno region – the breath-taking Certosa di Padula monastery, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
He ran until exhaustion took hold, and by chance, stumbled upon a young Italian boy who found him new clothes, food and a map. A week later, he was joined by another POW who had escaped from a train. Peter Medd was a naval officer, and together they began a two-month trek across Italy.
Over the course of their remarkable journey, Simms and Medd survived due to the generosity of courageous Italian families who gave them food and shelter, risking everything to help the Allied POWs. One family in particular, named the Abramis, let the men stay in a chestnut-drying hut in Roggio, Lucca, while Medd tended to blistered feet and boils.
Eventually, the two found sanctuary when they came across a Canadian officer in Lucito, 100 miles north of Naples. Their remarkable journey is detailed in the memoir co-written by the two soldiers, The Long Walk Home: An Escape in Wartime Italy.
German soldiers who were captured in Normandy disembarking from a LST at Southampton
Did you know?
There were also many Axis POWs from the battle of Salerno, who were sent to Great Britain and the United States.
“The [Germans] that were captured there were the fortunate ones,” says Beigel.
Over the course of the war, Axis prisoners were sent to work on farms in states like Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma and Iowa. Meanwhile, POWs were a solution to Britain’s labour shortage at the time. “These guys got out of a very difficult situation there,” Beigel notes, referring to the war in Italy.
When they weren't working, Axis POWs were often free to explore their local towns.
Their relatively light treatment in the United States put into perspective the injustices of the American Jim Crow laws at the time. Segregation in the US didn’t end until 1964, which meant African American servicemen had fewer liberties in their own country than the white Axis prisoners of war, who could use services and facilities they could not.
Jack Belden, a TIME and LIFE magazine war correspondent, was wounded on the battlefield during the Salerno invasion.
Belden joined the US 5th Army in their advance on the coast of Salerno, and quickly witnessed action first-hand. He even broke his femur in two places during a confrontation with the enemy.
Before long, a landing craft took Belden to the sick bay of a hospital ship, where the doctors explained that by immediately putting his leg in a splint, the quick-thinking front-line medics had saved him from amputation.
Lying in a ward full of battered and broken soldiers, Belden felt lucky to escape war with only a broken leg, and a story to tell.
Jack Belden in 1984
Sergeant Logan of the 1st Company, 3rd Battalion, 141st Infantry, saved his unit from almost-certain death with an act of selfless bravery.
During the initial assault on September 9th, German counterattacks were beginning to disrupt the Allied advance on the beach – leaving Allied troops confused and unprepared. Various troops even approached the front line without the right weapons to face German tanks.
Sergeant Logan’s unit were caught in the line of machine gun fire, and rendered unable to advance. Under constant assault, he crossed the 200-yard threshold to the stone wall from which the enemy attacked, taking out three Germans in the process. Then, seizing the machine gun position, he killed the gunners and used the German’s own weapon against them.
Sergeant Logan received the Medal of Honour for his valiant actions.
Private Crews was a soldier from Winokur, Georgia, who served with Company M, 3rd Battalion of the 179th Infantry Regiment during the Salerno invasion.
On September 17, 1943, Crews was killed in action after suffering gunshot wounds during the fierce combat. At his parents’ request, his remains were returned to Charlton County, Georgia in 1948.
Three of the first British paratroopers June 1941.
Private Swygart was a farmer from Gaston, South Carolina. He had a grammar school education and enlisted in the US Army on September 4, 1942 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
Private Swygart served with the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion. On September 21, 1943, he was killed in action by shrapnel wounds, with his remains returned to South Carolina in 1948.
Private Charney came from Rankin, Pennsylvania, and joined the US Army on June 15, 1943, at Fort Meade, Maryland. He was assigned to the Anti-Tank Company of the 15th regiment, 3rd Infantry Division.
On the 18th of January 1944, his DUKW, a landing craft with wheels, sank in the Gulf of Salerno on a practice amphibious assault in advance of the upcoming Anzio invasion.
Private Charney and three other men were lost.
Men of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division in Nuremberg, Germany
Interview with Bill Beigel
Research by Bill Beigel
Smith, K.V. (1994) Naples-foggia: The U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History.
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/operation_slapstick_taranto.html
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/operation_baytown.html
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/crushing-counterattack-at-salerno/
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/savagery-at-salerno/
David, S. (2005) Mutiny at Salerno, 1943: An injustice exposed. London: Conway.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/mutiny_01.shtml
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http://msmtrust.org.uk/news/long-walk-home/
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https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act
LIFE 27 Sep 1943 Vol. 15, No. 13
Naples-Foggia: The US Army Campaigns of World War II. CMH Pub 72–17.
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