Mount Pantano, 168th Infantry, 34th Division
November 29 - December 4, 1943
At the start of the new Allied offensive the 34th had as its immediate mission the capture of key heights north and south of Cerasuolo overlooking the Colli-Atina road.
From its defense area in the vicinity of Scapoli the 133d Infantry moved on the morning of 29 November toward the hills lying between Castelnuovo and Cerasuolo. By the 30th patrols of the 1st Battalion were in Castelnuovo, and units of the 100th Battalion,1 after occupying Hill 920, were moving onto Croce Hill. The 3d Battalion had reached Mount la Rocca, one and one-half miles northwest of the latter point. Enemy counteraction, especially mortar and artillery fire, checked the advance of the 133d. The regiment's only further gain before it was relieved on 9 December was Hill 1180, on the southern slopes of Mount Marrone, which Company L took by night attack across snow and ice on 2/3 December.
The main fighting of the 34th Division came in the effort to take Mount Pantano. Towering sixteen hundred feet above the Filignano Valley and flanking the Atina road, this height was the objective of the 168th Infantry (See Map 12)
Map No. 12
Before dawn on 29 November, the 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry, moved along the ridge just north of Filignano, across the road and up the brush-covered, rocky slopes of its objective. Aided by surprise, Company A took the southeast knob (Knob 1) of Mount Pantano shortly after daylight. This success did not end the battle. Three other knobs rise from the plateau which forms the mountain top, defended by the 2d Battalion, 577th Grenadiers. The main enemy strength lay on a nose jutting out from Knob 3, from which the Germans could sweep knobs 1 and 2 and the draws between them, but the whole plateau, fissured by gullies, offered excellent locations for dugouts, concealed mortar positions, and minefields.
Very soon after the appearance of American troops on the mountain top the Germans counterattacked from Knob 2 and broke through the right flank of Company A. Under heavy fire, Capt. Benjamin J. Butler, company commander, led forward his headquarters group and one squad of a platoon to stop the enemy, and then rallied his company to regain the lost ground. Meanwhile, our artillery fired a concentration on Knob 4. By noon the other two companies of the battalion had come up. This reinforcement did not discourage the enemy, for his counterattack later in the afternoon was checked only by a bayonet charge led by Capt. Butler. All through the night the Germans pressed against the 1st Battalion. To relieve the situation, Company F was committed on the left of the 1st Battalion toward Hill 895, and Company I went in on the right of Hill 760. The 168th on Pantano was short of ammunition when the enemy on Knob 2 counterattacked again at 0530, 30 November. However, our troops withstood the attack, and enemy activity slackened.
The 1st Battalion then prepared to push on toward Knob 2, but heavy fog prevented action until after noon. When the mist lifted, the 1st Battalion started forward, only to run into a thick minefield in the gully between the two knobs. Extremely heavy small-arms, mortar, and artillery fire came down, forcing the battalion to retreat to Knob 1. Within one hour Lt. Col. Wendell H. Langdon, commanding the 3d Battalion, and Lt. Col. Edward W. Bird, commanding the 2d Battalion, were wounded, and heavy casualties were suffered throughout all companies on the mountain top.
Toward evening on the 30th the divisional artillery and Company D of the 3d Chemical Battalion prepared extensive protecting and harassing fires, and the 1st Battalion dug in for the night. At 2130 enemy mortar fire was concentrated on Mount Pantano, and artillery fire with a high percentage of white phosphorus was added to it. At about 2240 a new enemy attack broke, in 'the greatest force so far. Capt. Fred D. Clarke, Jr., now commanding the 1st Battalion, sent a brief appeal for help through the radio of his forward artillery observer, the only means of communication left, and then the battalion set grimly about beating off the onslaught of the German infantry, whose strength was estimated at two companies. Throughout the wild night on the top of the mountain our men held their fox holes. Once two squads of Company C had to crawl over to aid Company A. As daylight approached, the Germans, pounded with heavy concentrations of our artillery, broke and fell back.
Other elements of the regiment were moving to support of the 1st Battalion on Mount Pantano. Company E, carrying food and ammunition, started up after midnight of 30 November. The 3d Battalion moved to the draw by the village of Pantano, where the houses were booby-trapped and the fields strewn with S-mines. Maj. Floyd E. Sparks, the battalion commander, went on ahead just before dawn on 1 December to take over command of the 1st Battalion. Heroic efforts were made to restore communication with our hard-pressed forces. The 1st Battalion message center chief, Sgt. Edward G. Jones, volunteered to repair the wire and crawled up the mountain through darkness and rain. Close to his goal he was wounded fatally by mortar fragments. Others continued the effort, but mortar fire kept cutting the line throughout the following day and night.
On 1 December Mount Pantano was almost quiet, as falling snow drifted across the rocks and the first-aid men sought out the wounded. All through the Pantano battle the medical personnel displayed the utmost bravery. Evacuation by litter was a four-hour carry down the steep mountainside, but the litter bearers from Company C, 109th Medical Battalion, carried their loads carefully despite casualties from the constant mortar fire. Even off the slopes of Pantano the wounded soldier was not in safety, for the enemy artillery hammered all the rear areas and arrival at a hospital was sometimes delayed for many hours. Extensive first aid bad accordingly to be administered in the thick of the fight. Capt. Emile G. Schuster crept forward under fire to an enemy minefield to treat men wounded by the antipersonnel mines and carried out plasma transfusions on the scene of battle Once a bottle was shot out of his hand, and the tree beside him was cut down by machine-gun fire; but Capt. Schuster got more supplies and continued his work.
The 2d of December was cloudy and cool with good visibility. At 0800 the 3d Battalion launched an attack up the slopes of Knob 2, preceded by a one-hour artillery preparation and accompanied by a rolling barrage. (See Map 13). The enemy yielded Knob 2 to Company K without a fight. Then our men moved on down toward the ravine between Knobs 2 and 3, leaving one platoon with a section of Company M on Knob 2; but the Germans rallied, counterattacked, and pushed Company K back over and down Knob 2 to the east edge of the Pantano plateau by 1400. At that point Company L reinforced Company K. Together they drove up again and in another two hours regained Knob 2, where Company E, with only one officer and twenty men left, joined them from Knob 1. A simultaneous attack by the rest of the 2d Battalion to the south of Knob I had meanwhile been stopped on an enemy minefield.
Map No 13
The three companies on Knob 2 held their ground throughout the night, while our chemical mortars put down a round every five minutes on the west slopes of Mount Pantano. After dark Company E, 135th Infantry, relieved Company I, 168th Infantry, on Hill 76o, and the latter company moved up to Knob 1 together with Company G to relieve the 1st Battalion. (See Map 14). By the morning of 3 December the 1st Battalion had left the position which had cost so much to take and hold. Company A came down the mountain with only three officers and fifty-three men, and the other companies were but little stronger.
Map No. 14
At 1030, 3 December, the 3d Battalion plodded off through the rain in a renewed attack toward Knob 3 by double envelopment, supported by Company M from Knob 2. As the attack got under way, it met enemy reinforcements the 2d Company, 577th Regiment of the 305th Grenadier Division and the 10th Company, 134th Regiment of the 44th Grenadier Division. These units had marched all night from Lagone and Picinisco respectively; they attacked between the wings of our envelopment, firing machine-pistols rapidly.
Col. (now Brig. Gen.) Frederick B. Butler quickly ordered the 3d Battalion to withdraw to Knob 2, while the supporting mortars and artillery fired heavy concentrations on enemy positions and line, of advance. But it was too late to assume the defensive, and to make matters worse, Company M on Knob 2 ran short of ammunition for its Browning automatic rifles, which had been brought up in place of the heavy machine guns. The enemy drove on over Knob 2, especially on the right flank of the 3d Battalion, and by 1330 our troops in this area were completely off the Pantano plateau. Coordinated with the attack on the 3d Battalion, other assaults were launched against Knob 1. Cpl. Zannie M. Reynolds, voluntarily exposing himself in order to return hostile fire, had first one rifle and then a second shot from his hands by enemy machine guns. With a third he fired for several minutes and then threw hand grenades at the advancing Germans until the attack was broken up. Companies G and I on Knob 1 maintained their line. On the far left, however, Company F was pushed back by 1300 with severe losses.
A disaster was in the making, and our supporting fires came down hard. In seventy-five minutes one chemical mortar fired 370 rounds of smoke and high explosive, even though enemy rifle fire was falling on the mortar positions east of Hill 895. The antitank platoons of
the 168th Infantry hauled up ammunition. Plans for organizing a rifle platoon from the rear echelon of the 2d Battalion were dropped in favor of getting reinforcements from the 3d Battalion, 135th Infantry. With a fresh supply of ammunition the 3d Battalion, 168th Infantry, rallied and came back up to the lip of the plateau east of Knob 2, where it was relatively safe from enemy mortar fire.
The enemy, having restored his positions on Knob 2, broke off the attack at 1830. In the afternoon of 4 December the 135th Infantry came up to relieve all elements of the 168th on Mount Pantano. During its six-day test of mental and physical endurance on the mountain the 168th Infantry had lost all its battalion commanders, together with 33 other officers and 386 men killed or wounded. It had expended 6,800 rounds of 81-mm mortar ammunition, 3,000 hand grenades, 7,500 rounds of 75-mm ammunition, and 400,000 rounds for rifle and machine gun. Only one knob of Mount Pantano was in our possession.
Map No. 15
