<p>Strangle kicked off on 19 March 1944. Within five days the medium bomber force had cut every rail line that supplied the German front, and they stayed cut until the end of the campaign. The XII Air Support Command flew more than 4,200 sorties against communications between 1 April and 12 May, and the Desert Air Force flew night interdiction attacks, using two squadrons each of their Douglas Bostons and Martin Baltimores.
</p>
<p>By mid-April, 27 major railroad bridges had been dumped into the valleys below. Between Rome and Florence, all the main bridges had been cut well before the ground offensive began in mid-May.
</p>
<p>Massive attacks by heavy bomber forces hit the rail yards of the north. On 28 March, a combined force of about 400 B-17s and B-24s from 15AF bombed the marshalling yards at Verona and Mestre. The next day, they attended to yards at Bolzano, Turin and Milan. On 7 April they hit the Mestre yards again, and also the installations at Treviso, Bologna and Ferrara. Bad weather slowed the pace, but on 30 April 500 heavies went out against several of the yards.
</p>
<p>This was accomplished in the face of foul weather. The medium bombers had been grounded, or had their missions aborted by weather about half of the time. They managed to rack up 200 missions only because some crews flew multiple strikes on some days.
</p>
<p>The Luftwaffe was hardly in evidence. A raid on the day before Strangle was kicked off, flown by the heavies, had caught most of their aircraft on the ground. The Luftwaffe bases at Udine, Villaorba, and three other locations, were hit by 373 heavies carrying 43,000 20-lb fragmentation bombs.
</p>
<p>When the results were in Strangle were judged a success. No rail traffic had ever moved closer than 50 miles (80 km) to Rome. Collaboration between heavy and medium bombers, and fighter-bombers, cut the bridges and kept them cut, and effectively closed 19 ports along the coasts.
