"Mt. Belvedere - 80 Years On"

 

This coming Wednesday will mark 80 years since the Ski Troops, the 10^th Mountain Division, first saw action in Italy. My father was part of the assault on Mt. Belvedere in Italy’s Apennines.

 

Attached are three photos: the first a sketch of Mt. Belvedere that was drawn by Captain George F. Earle; it appeared in his History of the 87^th Mountain Infantry, Italy 1945, published 20 October, 1945. The second and third are of a scene on top of Belvedere at the end of the first day and a caption for the photo. The last two items appear in an April 1946 album put together by 2^nd Lt. Richard A. Rocker, also of the 87^th, titled Vires Montesque Vincimus translated as “We Conquer Powers and Mountains,” the insignia for the 87^th Regiment – my father’s regiment – of the 10^thMountain Division. 

 

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The passage of time can be deceptive. It is hard to imagine, at least for me, that the 80 years between now and the end World War II are equal to the 80 years from the end of the Civil War to the end of World War II.

 

Enjoy the long weekend, but don’t forget those who served.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“Mt. Belvedere – 80 Years On”

February 15, 2025

 

“It is the duty of every generation to remember the sacrifices

of those who came before, so that their legacy may live on.”

                                                                                                                                Herman Wouk (1915-1919)

                                                                                                                                War and Remembrance, 1978

 

With the 80^th anniversary marking the end of World War II fast approaching, the number of combatants still alive is shrinking. The Bureau of Veteran Affairs estimated last year that, out of over 16 million Americans who served in the War, approximately 66,000 men and women are still with us, with an estimated 55 dying each day. As well, we are rapidly losing even those with memories of the War.

 

So it is fitting to mark battles in which members of our families participated. By early January 1945, the ultimate outcome of the War was obvious, yet an estimated 49,000 American GIs were yet to die in combat. Okinawa, Iwo Jima and the Battle of Berlin were yet to be fought. Among the lesser well-known battles was one that took place in Italy, where an estimated 100,000 German troops under General Albert Kesselring were embedded along what was called the Gothic Line, a roughly 200-mile defensive line running along the Apennines from Spezia on the Ligurian Sea to Pesaro and Ravenna on the Adriatic. Following the fall of Rome in early June 1944, Germans retreated north to this mountainous defensive position that protected the farm-rich Po Valley and the cities of Bologna and Verona. The key was Mount Belvedere, the highest peak, which overlooked Highway 65, the main road between Florence and Bologna.   

 

In March 1944 my father, then thirty-three, married and father of three (with a fourth on the way), was drafted. After basic training at Fort McClellan in Alabama, he transferred to the 10^th Mountain Division – the “Ski Troops,” who had trained in Colorado, but were then stationed at Camp Swift, about 40 miles east of Austin. In December, the 10^th was sent to Fort Patrick Henry in Virginia, prior to being shipped to Italy later that month. A full complement of 14,000 men, under Major General George P. Hays, were sent to rout Kesselring’s troops from their mountainous redoubts. In Mountain Troopers, Curtis Casewit quoted General Hayes: “Mt. Belvedere must be captured before we can advance.”

 

In November 1944, elements of the British 8^th Army and the U.S. 5^th Army had attacked Germans entrenched on Belvedere. German counter-attacks caused them to retreat. Three months later, on February 19^th, the 10^th Mountain Division (now part of the 5^thArmy) made its ascent, beginning at 0030 hours. The night before the 1^st Battalion of the 86^th Regiment captured Riva Ridge, which overlooked slopes on Belvedere. Along with others, C Company (my father’s unit) of the 87^th Regiment were ordered to move silently forward, with Division artillery supporting the attack. They walked single-file, ten feet apart. “The way up,” Peter Shelton wrote in Climb to Conquer, “was long and folded, riddled with streams and ditches, with sharp ravines and bombed-out wagon roads.” They had to avoid mined fields and went past “ghostly remains of U.S. tanks,” abandoned on that earlier attempt. Because of walking past German sentries, the GIs, with fixed bayonets, carried grenades but no live ammunition – at least until daylight. Unfortunately, several soldiers were killed by mines. By 0430 Company C had attained its objective atop Belvedere, but with three of its men killed. Hays was again quoted by Curtis Casewit: “Mt. Belvedere and the occupied ground will be held at all costs.”

 

My father, a Harvard-educated artist, was not insensitive to the horrors of battle and the casualties around him when he wrote my mother on February 28 – the first time in almost two weeks that he had had a chance. He did not want to worry her more than she already was: “I’m behind the lines again after spending another week on the front. This time it wasn’t quite so comfortable, with foxholes and shells landing round about and that sort of thing. But the weather was nice and it wasn’t really too bad…I was in the attack on Mt. Belvedere, which is more like a hill than a mountain…There were crocuses in bloom on Mt. Belvedere and the view was beautiful, both day and night, a strange setting for a battle.”[1]

 

German counter-attacks continued for five days; among those killed was a young member of my father’s platoon, 18-year-old Juan Barrientos. He was killed by a shell fragment, a fragment that nicked my father’s cheek. They would have nine more weeks of combat before the war in Italy was over on May 2. Just under 1,000 ski troops would be killed, with almost 4,000 wounded – one of the heaviest casualty rates of any division based on time in action. Among those wounded was Senator Robert Dole, a replacement officer, on April 14 in Castel d’Aiano. My father, who became a runner for his company, was among the lucky ones. He was awarded the Bronze Star for “meritorious service.” His homecoming, at the Nashua, New Hampshire railroad station on V-J Day, remains vivid in my mind. Among the cheers, tears, joy, and honking of horns, I recall running across the parking lot to greet him. 

 

“Freedom is not free,” may sound trite; nevertheless, it is a truism. Over the almost two hundred and fifty years of our nation’s existence, millions of men and women have given up years of their lives in defense of their country, and many paid the ultimate sacrifice, that the rest of us may live in peace. In his book quoted above, Herman Wouk wrote: “The scars of war may fade, but they will always be a reminder of the price we paid for peace.”

 

2025 marks eighty years since the end of the greatest war the planet has ever seen. We should spend a few minutes thinking of those who sacrificed that we might enjoy that precious gift of freedom.

 

 

 

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[1] Dear Mary: Letters Home from the 10^th Mountain Division, 2019, page 61, edited by Sydney M. Williams