ENGINEERS SETTING OFF ENEMY MINES in a street in Leghorn on 19 July 1944, the day the city fell. The soldier at left is guarding engineers against snipers. The Germans had destroyed all the port facilities, mined the buildings in the harbor area, and made the latter unusable by blocking the entrance with sunken ships. The drive from Rome to the Arno River was a pursuit action in which the Germans, by skillful delaying tactics, slowed the Allied advance so that completion of the Gothic Line defenses in the northern Apennines could be expedited. The mouth of the Arno River was reached by 23 July 1944.
ITALY
TROOPS IN PISA. The southern outskirts of this town on the Arno River were entered on 23 July 1944. The enemy had destroyed all bridges across the river and when the infantry entered the town they were met by heavy fire from across the river. The southern half of the city was found heavily mined and booby-trapped. During the approach to the Arno River plans were being completed for introduction of antiaircraft units into the lines as infantry since enemy air activity had decreased to the extent that many AA units could be more profitably used as infantry.
ITALY
FIRING HOWITZERS across the Arno River in August. The men of this unit were part of an American all-Negro regimental combat team, the first to appear in Italy. They entered the line south of the Arno on 23 August. A few weeks later an entire Negro infantry division was at the front. (105-mm. howitzer.)
ITALY
MEMBERS OF AN ARMORED FIELD ARTILLERY UNIT firing a 105-mm. howitzer during training south of the Arno River. The howitzer is mounted on a Priest. The Fifth Army reached the Arno at Pontedera on 18 July and the first week in August found the forces grouped along the southern bank on a thirty-five-mile front reaching from the sea on the west to Florence. The month of August was used for resupplying, resting, and training the units. (105-mm. howitzer; M7 gun motor carriage.)