<text id=00he0716><title>Attacks Against the Roads</title>
<history>US Air Force: Events History</history>
<article><hdr>Attacks Against the Roads</hdr><body>
<p>The desperate Germans shifted from rail to motor transport, as expected, and their vehicles then were targets for every low-flying aircraft around. They sent supplies by coastal shipping, which was promptly strafed, bombed and sunk by Coastal Air Force. Then it was horse-drawn wagons and feet that finally moved the Germans north. It began as an orderly withdrawal; Strangle turned that retreat into a shambles and then into a rout.
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<p>On 11 May, ground forces embarked on a major offensive that was intended to break the Gustav Line and end the Italian campaign. That day, 730 B-17s and B-24s dropped thousands of bombs on tactical targets in support of the offensive. The next day, 670 heavies pounded marshalling yards; on the next, 700 bombers repeated the performance.
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<p>On 18 May, Cassino finally fell. On 4 June 1944, the Allies entered Rome, and there is where most histories leave the Italian campaign. The invasion of Normandy was about to steal the scene, and to attract the reporters and photographers. But the task of the soldiers and airmen was not over; they were to spend almost another year before the Germans surrendered in Italy.
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<p>In early September, air units attacked troop concentrations in the Po Valley. The Germans were building still another defense, the Gothic Line, and air power was called on to support the Allied drive to break it. By now it was routine. The Germans would form a strong defensive line, and the Allies would attack it. Allied air power would fly interdiction strikes against railroads and supply movements behind the German lines, and would bomb and strafe German troop concentrations and gun emplacements closer to the front. Day after day the fight wore on, well into October.
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<p>MAAF celebrated Columbus Day that year with a massive strike of heavy bombers from 15AF. Seven hundred of them carpeted the marshalling yards at Bologna with high explosives, and then the weather took over for the rest of the month, grounding almost all air action in Italy.
