Florence

Florence, October 25th

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10 Bty made it to Florence along with the rest of the Canadians but did not go into action.  The regimental war diary points out that although Florence was declared a free city by the Germans, this did not eliminate sniper fire and the occasional mortar round.

The reason the Canadians were here was part of another “ruse”.  Originally their move north had been kept a secret because the Eighth Army plans had been to drive through Florence on to Bologna and, of course, the Canadian Corps was expected to be the point and they didn’t want the Germans to know the Canadians were comming. At the beginning of July the Chief of Staff of the German Tenth Army, Generalmajor Fritz Wentzell summed it up…”if only I knew where the Canadians are”.

The Eighth Army big wigs changed their plans even as the Canadians moved north.  The plan was now to attack up the Adriatic Coast but to make the Germans believe the attack was coming through Florence so it was now necessary to let the Germans know where the Canadians were.  Still with me.  Not sure everyone in August 1944 was.

Waving the Canadian flag, as it where, would convince the Germans that an attack was forth coming.  To quote another German officer who was somewhat in awe of our boys, Oberst Henning Werner Runkel, the Chief of Staff of LXXVI Panzer Corps, “one of these days the Canadian Corps is going to attack and then our centre will explode”.

So our boys came to Florence, not to see the sights, but to be one of the sights seen. Once all this flag waving had occurred, the Canadians packed up and in just one week had secretly crossed the spine of Italy once again to a concentration area near Jesi, about 24 km from the coast.  This in itself was a major piece of work since the Canadian engineers built 190 km of road for our and the Brit tanks so that the road wouldn’t be chewed up for the infantry.

What’s about to happen from that point is the breaching of the Gothic Line…but I’ll get there when I get there.

At the moment I’m in an absolutely lovely spot on the south side of the Arno, on the east end of Florence, the Mulino di Firenze.  Look it up on the web and weep for me having to stay in such a lovely spot.  I’ll be picking Cat up in a few hours so that may be it for a while.

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