Climb to Conquer by Peter Shelton

Author:Peter Shelton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

CHAPTER 10:

Belvedere

Time deals out many kinds of hours,” David Brower wrote in Remount Blue, a combat history of his 3d Battalion, 86th Mountain Regiment:

There is the microscopic one that passes without the knowing of the fond couple parked on the hill. There is the short hour by which a newsman’s deadline measures its approach. Hours are from moderate to long, depending on one’s interest in a task, attenuated if you are on time and someone else is late, interminable if you’re pacing the maternity hospital lobby. But how to describe the kind of hours the soldier gets when he is waiting for the jump-off, the hours that he divides into minutes and again into seconds that he cannot squander?

Brower’s battalion, which had been in reserve the night before, when the 1st Battalion climbed Riva, now waited in the dark at the foot of the Belvedere-Gorgolesco massif. The plan was for the 87th Regiment to attack up Belvedere’s left flank (facing north) beginning at 11:00 P.M. (Bob Parker would lead a column up the same route he had scouted two days before to the village of Corona.) At the same time, one battalion of the 85th would move straight up toward Belvedere’s summit, and a second battalion, further right, would climb to the saddle separating Belvedere from its slightly lower sister peak, Monte Gorgolesco. The 86th Regiment’s 3d Battalion—Brower’s group—would then secure Gorgolesco’s right flank.

As General Hays had said, all of this was to be accomplished at night, without artillery preparation and without loaded rifles; he was counting once again on the element of surprise. Soldiers worried that this was foolish; hadn’t the enemy been sufficiently alerted by the previous night’s attack on Riva Ridge? Nevertheless, the orders read: No arms are to be used before daylight; the aim is to slip past the German positions if possible and gain the high ground behind them; positions that cannot be bypassed are to be eliminated with bayonets, knives, and grenades; if we don’t fire our weapons, the defenders will not know where we are or what our strength is; artillery and air support will come only after daybreak and after initial objectives have been taken.

“Man alive,” said Dan Kennerly when Sgt. Harry Poschman read the orders. “We are to make an assault with five battalions against the strongest German positions in Italy and not a goddamn loaded gun in the entire outfit. That’s a large order, Sarge. I hope the general knows what he’s doing.”

While Brower and his battalion waited, Poschman and his machine-gun squad shouldered their loads and started up the hill behind C Company, 85th Regiment. They had been hiding all day in haystacks and hedgerows and rubble-strewn stone buildings, and now, as word came that the Riva climbers were holding firm against sporadic counterattacks, they moved across the line of departure. “This is it, men!” Harry thought about the line his officers had used at Camp Hale to simulate drama, and how the dogfaces had snickered under their breath every time.

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