Dear Ivano Tognarini,

Below is a section taken from Chapter II "ARRIVEDERCI ROMA". This part of Chapter II describes the taking of Monte Peloso by "C" Company of the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment on June 25, 1944.

The author of this account was Captain Charles La Chaussee who was the commanding officer of "C" Company.

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On June 24 the 1st Battalion moved by truck from the inland mountains to the west coast, about 30 miles north of Fallonica. We were on the extreme left of the 36th Infantry Division. The sea was a mile to our left. We were to advance to the north the next day along Highway 1 toward Suvereto.

Early in the morning of the 25th Major Boyle assembled his commanders and staff on a hill overlooking our route of advance. To the north, Highway 1 crossed the dry bed of the Corina River and a mile beyond was dominated by a sugar loaf-shaped ominous-looking hill called Monte Peloso.

"The Krauts have been holding up the 143d on our right. We’re to attack north, clear that mountain, and continue on to Suvereto. Off on the coast to the west is a place called San Vincenzo. Free French Commandos captured the island of Elba a few days ago and are supposed to land at San Vincenzo today. If we take that hill it will relieve the pressure on their landing."

"We’ll move out in a column of companies, B, C, Headquarters, and A.. We’ll follow that stream bed to the base of the hill and decide further action from there. C Company , I’ll probably send you around to the left to hit the mountain from that side."

This was our first formal attack. Our operations to this point had been entirely advance-guard skirmishes. We moved out in column along the river bed, going beneath a bridge where the highway crossed. A very heavy concentration of American artillery began to plaster the mountain, lasting for twenty minutes. There was brush growing along the river bed and we had good concealment. B Company’s leading platoon began to receive rifle and "burp gun" (Schmeisser machine pistol) fire. The going was slow as they forced the German outposts back. Incongruously, a cuckoo began his call. Cuckoos were native to the area, and the bird may have been expressing his opinion of us. Or it may have been a preplanned signal used by the Germans.

After an hour the column halted, and Major Boyle called company commanders forward. The brush was thin at his location and the mountain was much closer, perhaps a half-mile away. B Company had reached the base of the mountain and to the right. We could hear scattered small-arms fire from the vicinity of the 143d.

The company commanders had just reached the Battalion Commander’s location when an 81mm mortar shell landed nearby. We had been sighted by German observers on the mountain. We scattered fast. I ran to the right, took cover in a wagon rut, and heard three more mortar shells "chunk" as they left the tube. I knew at this range I had about 30 seconds before the shells arrived, and looked desperately for better cover. Another rut a few yards away seemed deeper, and I crawled into it just before the shells hit in a triangular pattern on three sides. The fragments whined like tuning forks as they went overhead. One of

the shells had landed squarely on the first rut I had occupied. After a brief time, I ran back to the command group, and found that it had scattered. Major Boyle had been hit and was being evacuated, and the other company commanders were returning to their units. Major Bowlby, the executive officer, was at the rear of the column. I decided to go ahead and take the mountain from the west as Boyle had indicated at the morning briefing.

I retraced my route back to the head of C Company and led it very cautiously to the west in the shelter of a low ridge. When assembled there, I crept to the top of the ridge and looked over the ground.

We were six or seven hundred yards from the mountain. A string of tall steel power line towers led diagonally to the hill; halfway there a farmer was plowing a field, in complete disregard of the war around him. I called in Lt. Marks, the Second Platoon Leader, and told him to take his platoon forward along the power line to the base of the mountain. "Get as far as you can. I’m going to put down artillery to cover us. I’ll move the company to the left and come in from that side. When you see us start up the hill, join in."

The attached artillery forward observer and the Battalion 81mm mortar platoon leader were nearby, and I asked them how long it would take to put down fire on the mountain. The artilleryman said it would be at least a half hour, and mortarman said ten minutes. Time was getting critical; it would be dark in a little more than an hour. The last thing I wanted was for darkness to find the battalion strung out all over the landscape and the objective untaken. I pointed out to the mortar platoon leader a low stone wall running along the base of the mountain and told him to put a ten minute concentration of smoke on it. In the meantime, the 2nd platoon reported that they had reached the base of the mountain.

The mortar concentration landed along the wall with quiet "crumps" exactly as I had asked for it and created a wall of rising smoke. This was the moment, if ever. We were all in good physical condition and we raced across the six hundred yards of open ground at top speed, first platoon on the right and third on the left. We reached the base of the mountain and loped up over the stone wall. Beyond it was a terraced hillside and we went up ledge by ledge, as though climbing a giant staircase. Smoke was thick from an olive grove that had been set afire by the mortar shells. As we reached the western crest of the hill we swung the platoons around to face east, down the ridge. We had arrived on the German flank undetected and were in position to roll them up like a rug.

A German machine gun opened up thirty yards to our front, sending up a shower of chips from a nearby woodpile. I hollered, "Fix Bayonets", but most couldn’t hear me. We moved forward at a fast trot and the machine gun drove us to cover again. Sergeant John Miller ran ahead and gained ten yards. I fired my submachine gun to cover him, and immediately drew a return burst from the machine gun. I waited for Miller to throw a grenade, but heard no explosion.

Marks’ second platoon had now come in on the right of the first, and one of his men, Private Carl Salmon, spotted the machine gun and crawled toward it. When he was fifty feet away the machine gunners began to turn the gun toward him, but Salmon emptied two rifle clips into the bushes being shaken by the gun’s muzzle blast. The gun was silenced and the entire company moved forward at a run, firing from the hip. We ran past the machine gun, where there were two Germans dead and a third wounded. Far ahead, on a wooded portion of the ridge, a file of seven or eight Germans, was pulling back. I fired my submachine gun again, but they were well out of range. We reached the far end of the ridge and paused to take stock.

There were no Germans in sight and we were not receiving any fire. Nervous over a possibility of a counter attack, I swung the platoons around to face north again. I called for reports on casualties and ammunition, and radioed battalion that we were on the objective.

Company A and the Battalion command group arrived just before dark. Major Bowlby divided the objective between Companies C and A. He proceeded to dress me down for not keeping him informed and for using 81mm mortar ammunition. I remained silent and took my licking like a dutiful plebe. Of course, we should have kept him posted, but I felt justified in having gone ahead without orders and in using the 81mm mortar ammunition. What were we carrying it around for - the next war?

As darkness came on we settled in for the night. While the troopers scratched "wistful foxholes" among the rocks, the company command group... myself, the First Sergeant, the Executive, and a radio operator... occupied a six by six pit, the former home of the mortar that had given us trouble that afternoon. The dead were laid out nearby... three Germans (the wounded officer had died) and the Italian farmer who had been plowing his field. All four had died for their principles. We had just one casualty, a messenger who had been killed by mortar fire while making his way to the rear. No one had sent him on the trip and apparently he had been killed while looking for safety.

The enemy force had been a platoon from the 29th SS Panzer Grenadier Division. This was a new identification, and an important one. The Germans were now committing some of their best troops to stiffen resistance.

Soon after dark the enemy began shelling the hill with artillery from beyond Suvereto, and several men from Company A were hit. A large haystack 50 feet from our hole caught fire and burned briskly all night. The Germans seemed to be using it as an aiming point. We gave some thought to putting the fire out, but decided that might make matters worse and the shelling continued sporadically until dawn.

At about four in the morning ..."false dawn"... the field telephone rang, and Honest John Dugan answered it. He said, "They say that Daddy is here."

"What to hell is that supposed to mean"? I asked.

Honest John didn’t know either. But with a little more conversation, he deciphered the message.

"It means were being relieved ." He said.

At daylight kakhi figures began to move up the hillside from the rear. They were short rugged looking types, and to our surprise, were Japanese. This was the 442d "Nisie" Japanese American Combat Team in its first commitment to action. Their Company Commander checked in with me.

" Where is your machine gun section?", he said.

"Well", I explained, "We have one in each rifle squad, so they’re all along the line."

"How about the Company CP?"

"Right here."

"Company OP?"

"Same right here." I was beginning to feel very amateurish; apparently rifle companies were supposed to have both a command post and an observation post. Since we were just a few feet from the rifle line I had felt that one location was good enough.

When the 442d was in place we filtered back off the hillside, formed in column, and moved to the rear. Although we were unaware of it at the time this was was our last action in Italy. The 442d continued the attack that day, gaining Suvereto and beyond with severe causalities, one of them being the company commander who relieved me.

As far as I know the French Commandos never did land at San Vincenzo.

The day after our relief by the 442d a truck convoy delivered the battalion to a dusty open field fringed by wooded hills. As we unloaded from the trucks and filed across the field we were met by Captain Bill Young, the Operation Officer. "We'll lay out pup tents in Company streets," he said. "Officer s’ tents will be over there , mess area over there."

I stared at the hot, unshaded plain and asked, "Why not move into the hills, where we’ll have some shade?"

"Because this is the way the battalion commander wants it", he replied.

"Well the hell with it." I said. "I’m not going to put these troops out here." and led the company out of the plain and up into the hill range. Here we organized in platoon clusters, where men pitched tents or not, as they desired. Most spread out under bushes and trees. I found the ruins of a shepherd’s hut, covered part of it with a poncho, and settled down.

For a week this was our way of life--Company "C" relaxing in the shade, and the rest of the battalion broiling in the July sun. This did not endear us to the rest of the battalion, but the issue was not forced.

We were in IV Corps reserve, and to be ready for attachment to Task Force Ramey, an armored battle group; but no commitment orders came. After a few weeks, we entrucked for a further movement back to Rome, where we prepared for the airborne invasion of Southern France.