<p>Montgomery had led his Eighth Army into Italy and was working his way up through Calabria under heavy air cover. The Americans had planned a landing farther north, at Salerno, south of the Bay of Naples. Under the codename Avalanche, the US launched the Fifth Army, commanded by General Mark W. Clark, against Salerno and its German defenders.
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<p>On D-day, 9 September 1943, the Americans landed under heavy ground fire, but with little trouble from enemy air power. By September the Axis air strength had been sharply reduced by the NAAF tactical forces. The once-aggressive Luftwaffe was a shadow of its former power. Captured German documents showed later that only 82 fighter and 26 attack sorties were mounted that day by the Luftwaffe.
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<p>German ground troops made Salerno a fierce fight, and by 14 September were so much in charge that Clark asked the Navy to consider withdrawal plans. That day, and the days before it, every available combat plane was in the sky above Salerno, pounding German artillery, strafing vehicles, bombing armored troops. During the first days of the invasion, NAAF flew 3,400 sorties, and the bombers dropped a massive load that averaged 760 tons per square mile. On a more understandable level, that is about equal to dropping a single 1,000-lb bomb in the center of every backyard in a typical American suburban housing development.
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<p>By the next day, the German defense was broken. Troops started to withdraw towards Naples, Clark's men following. The Germans stopped long enough to destroy the docks, and to level and burn everything within a quarter-mile radius, and then moved out of Naples headed north. Clark's troops poured into the grateful city on 1 October.
