Page Twenty-eight

Terrain

9. Forli, the immediate major objective of 5 Corps, stood in the flat country astride Route 9 and four miles away from the foothills which run parallel to Route 9 on the southern side. The town, however, is too far away from the hills to be dominated by them. The town itself is compact, occupying an area, of little more than one square mile, and in the normal state of Italian congestion. It was the hub of roads which radiated in all directions, including Route 67 which running from Florence cuts through Forli to run in a northeasterly direction to Ravenna.

10, Between the town and the foot hills the country is well watered with rivers, large streams and drainage canals. The Rivers Rabbi and Montana, which makes their confluence one thousand yards southwest of Forli, are in this area not contained by flood-banks but flowing in somewhat steep-sided natural channels, readily fordable only in a limited number of places, while the whole area between these two rivers is heavily intersected with smaller streams and tributaries. North and northwest of Forli the picture was somewhat different. The new combined rivers, which takes the name of the River Montone, flow past the western edge of Forli, and a few hundred yards north of Route 9, takes the unusual course of flowing due northwestwards for almost four miles in an intermittently embanked channel. Here the river is joined by a heavily embanked river flowing in the normal northeasterly direction, and the River Montone turns sharply to the north-east to follow its course between ever increasing flood-banks to the sea.

11. At the northeastern outskirts of Forli a neck, little more than half a mile wide, is formed by the River Montone on the south and the Canalo di Ravaldino on the north flowing in parallel and embanked channels north-northwestwards for about one mile. After this point the Canalo turns away to the north and the ground again opens out to permit free manoeuvre. The river flowing into the Montana at its turning point is the River Coslna; this river is little more than a large stream, but with its flood-banks it contrived to form a definite tank obstacle. Flowing almost parallel roughly seven hundred yards to the east is a similar stream, the River Bolzanino, which eventually joins the former river in the area of the railway line. It was along this River Cosina and the subsequent stretch of the River Montone, which together flows on almost straight line running across 5 Corps sector from southeast to northeast, that the enemy had been preparing with great haste a series of defence works as part of the main line of resistance. The defence line continued for one mile along a tributary of the River Cosina which preserved a better alignment, to be anchored to the foothills in the fortified village of Costiglione.

12. Some three and a half miles further west flows the River Marzeno, a tributary of the larger River Lamono. The River Marzeno makes a wide bow towards the northeast, and flows in a sinuous and embanked course combined with the River Lamono, one thousand yards south of Route 9 to flow to the sea as the River Lamono. The large town of Faenza lies astride Route 9 but on the west bank of the River Lamono. This arrangement is peculiar to the usual siting of towns, which previously all lay on the east banks of their rivers. The roads within the sector are typical of the area as a whole, being generally too narrow for two-way military traffic and are lined by deep drainage ditches on either side. The foundations of these reads were not particularly solid and the surface broke up under heavy traffic. This sort of road, however, is fairly plentiful and though in the northern sector the main trend is from southwest to northeast, parallel to the river, south of Route 9 the usual axis was parallel to that road.

13. One and a half miles outside the southeast edge of Forli lies the airfield, the first one to be approached since the capture of Rimini. Originally constructed with concrete runways and further developed whilst in use by the German Air Force, all the runways had been extensively damaged by a combination of Allied bombing and German systematic destruction. The airfield buildings were modern concrete structures which, being on three sides of the field held command of the whole area. They too had suffered heavily from the aerial bombardment and were mere skeletons of their original state.

Enemy Situation

14. Photographic reconnaissance had revealed a strengthening of the defensive potential of the River Montone and its associated river, by a series of newly constructed weapon pits running along the river line and across Route 9 southwestwards for about six miles into the foothills, which made this position at least as strong as the River Ronco and proved to be, but which had the added advantage of presenting a slightly shorter and straighter front. All factors had indicated the wisdom of an ultimate withdrawal to this position. The enemy, however, remained obstinate on his Ronco positions, and the strong resistance encountered reflected the intention now to defend that area as a position of first importance and not merely to fight a delaying action. It was difficult to determine exactly to what extent this change of policy was occasioned by the weather or by some other strategic plan. Rain falling so frequently had rivers in spate and so softened the ground that extraction of heavy equipment and guns out of the hills was made a very slow process, a situation calling for more time to be gained by the enemy in present positions, but it also precluded any possibility of a rapid follow up on our part, whilst low cloud prevented the use of the air force in an extensive offensive role. Further evidence of the enemy’s change of mind was found in the continued pressure of about six heavy tanks (Panthers and Tigers) in the sector just west of the River Ronco and south of Route 9.
Under the continued pressure of 2 Polish Corps and the 10th Indian Division, the 356th Division had continued to fall back northwestwards away from the hills, but north of Route 9, where the state of the river, flood-banks and the ground generally excluded the possibility of applying pressure on the extended formations in that sector hold positions right up to the River Ronco. It therefore seemed that the enemy’s ultimate intention was still to swing his forces northwestwards out of the hills, but as his ability to chock the thrusts of both Fifth and Eighth Armies, given the suitable and unusual weather conditions, had been clearly demonstrated, he now chose to remain generally whore he was until forced out by direct pressure, or under the threat of being outflanked, Thus he hoped to deny to the Allies the use of Route 9 as a lateral road.

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