1944 engagement in Emilia-Romagna, Italy
The Battle of Monte Battaglia occurred on 24 September 1944, when a partisan battalion of the 36th Garibaldi Brigade, with 250 men divided into six companies, operating in the Imola and Faenza Apennines, began an infiltration movement that led it to occupy Monte Battaglia on the morning of 27 September. On the same morning, a group of partisans engaged the German units defending the summit of Mount Carnevale. On the other side of the mountain, unbeknownst to the partisans, soldiers of the 350th regiment of the U.S. 88th Infantry Division (Blue Devils), engaged in the breakthrough of the Gothic Line, were operating from south to north following the watershed between the Senio and Santerno rivers. After the encounter, on the afternoon of the 27 September the Americans were driven to Mt. Battaglia. The mountain had already hosted a nucleus of partisans and draft dodgers in the winter of 1943, but had not been deemed a cause for concern by the fascists. This time, however, given also the proximity to the front line, having arrived on the mount, the partisans had to withstand in the rain an attack by the 290th German Grenadier Regiment, with members of the 44th and 715th Divisions, which were repelled also with the help of three companies of the Blue Devils.
The fighting continued for another five days, but the Germans, despite reinforcements called up from the Adriatic front and help also obtained from forces of the Republic of Salò were again pushed back with heavy losses. The fighting sustained by the partisan brigade alongside the U.S. Army was an episode of high strategic and military value as part of the liberation of Italy from the Nazi-Fascists. The 350th regiment of the 88th division took the name "Mount Battaglia".
On 3 October, the U.S. Army gave way to the 1st Welsh Guards Brigade, which, until 11 October, faced the last German assaults. The fighting was particularly bloody, but the sacrifice of lives, with over 2,000 killed, did not bring immediate effects: despite the fact that the conquest of Monte Battaglia opened the way to the Po Valley, the Allied advance was halted, for reasons of military and political strategy, until the spring of the following year.
As a result of the fighting and the intense use of artillery, the remains of the fortress of Mount Battaglia were destroyed: only a trunk of the tower and a spur of the city wall remained, which then collapsed immediately after the war.
The final Allied offensive was launched in April 1945. The Senio valley was liberated by the "Friuli" Combat Group, framed in the British 10th Army Corps. For the sacrifices of its people and its activity in the partisan struggle, Casola Valsenio was awarded the War Cross of Military Valor.
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