The Division moves up to the Sangro

La Divisione si trasferisce al Sangro 

Circa un mese dopo l’arrivo del primo contingente a Taranto, la 2^ Divisione neozelandese cominciò il trasferimento al fronte in Abruzzo, dove l’8^ Esercito britannico era bloccato a sud del f. Sangro. Fu un viaggio di 3 giorni, e ci vollero due settimane per trasferire l’intera Divisione. Con la prima tappa, passando per Locorotondo e Alberobello, raggiunse Altamura-Gravina, il secondo giorno attraversò la Puglia fino a San Severo e con il terzo giorno arrivò in Abruzzo, passando per Termoli e Vasto. La loro destinazione era attorno ai paesini di Furci e Gissi. Gli uomini avevano osservato con grande interesse le campagne della Puglia, le colture, e la vita contadina. Arrivati in Abruzzo, però, vedevano già il fumo di battaglia e il terreno difficile da affrontare. Davanti a loro videro successioni di colline che scendevano verso la costa, separate da ampie vallate, e piccoli paesi sulle creste, collegate da strade che percorrevano i dorsi. Era la “linea d’inverno”, le postazioni fortificate dei Tedeschi della Linea Gustav.

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In 1943, at this time of the year (the middle two weeks of November), the 2^nd New Zealand Division began moving up to Abruzzo to join the Eighth Army front below the Sangro River. It was a three-day journey, and it took a full two weeks to transfer the entire Division. This meant that while the first units were setting out on their final leg, some were still in Taranto awaiting transports. 

The first leg took the Division due north across the ‘heel’ of Italy, through Martina Franca and Locorotondo, then east past the picturesque village of Alberobello, and on through Gioia and Santéramo to Altamura and Gravina (both sites of former POW camps where Kiwi and other Allied soldiers, captured in earlier campaigns, had transited in 1942-43). Travelling well behind the front, the Division could enjoy daylight travel and observe their new environment. “The route to the first staging area at Altamura was across partly flat and partly undulating country, where white stone houses clustered around every crossroad and signs were not wanting that the Eighth Army had recently passed that way. The next leg was through Foggia, little more than a flattened heap of stones, to the Lucera area, where the battalion stayed for two days in the rain and where some useful, if unofficial, patrol work was done. Several captured pigs added variety to the evening meals” (J.F. Cody, 28 Maori Battalion).

After an overnight stop between Altamura and Gravina, the Division headed north again to Corato then north-west through Andria and Cerignolo and past Foggia (by then an Allied air base) to Lucera, where the route turned north again to San Severo, the second staging point.  It then continued in a north-westerly direction, reaching the coast at Termoli. Thereafter, the route ran close to the coast until just beyond the seaside town of Vasto. Here the Division turned southwest, travelling parallel to the many rivers flowing out to the Adriatic, to assembly areas some 20 km from the coast, south of the front on the Sangro River. Their destination was the area round the small towns of Gissi (489 m) and Furci (553 m) which provided excellent vantage points for surveying the land ahead – a panorama of olive-clad hills and scattered farmhouses, with the gleaming Adriatic to the east, and the mountain ridges rising to snowy peaks to the west. Any flights of fancy were likely short-lived, with smoke clouds and noise of artillery not too far ahead.

It was a strange and circuitous route on minor roads (many in those days unpaved), which introduced the Kiwi soldiers to a lesser, rural Italy of small towns and villages, olive plantations and vineyards, and fields of grain or grazing animals, already glimpsed in the countryside around Taranto.

Not surprisingly, the soldiers were enchanted with the landscape of Puglia, with its sweeping vistas, picturesque villages, and endless olive trees. It also included medieval castles, a magnificent karst landscape of deep ravines studded with historic villages like Alberobello (now a UNESCO World Heritage site), with its quaint, white, cone-shaped houses (trulli), and Gravina.

An Auckland doctor who travelled with the Division reports crossing “…a wide area of limestone uplands with a narrow coastal plain which spreads out into the drained marshland on which the Foggia airfields have been constructed. This country is almost devoid of rivers and until quite recently its upper plateaux were given over to grazing. Now most of it is covered with olive, almond and fruit trees. It contains one of the backwaters of Europe, and types of domestic architecture persisted here which are only found in Malta and Sardinia, including whole villages in which the majority of the dwellings are constructed of dry stone block, roofed over with conical stone roofs all built of dry stone corbelling.” (G. Blake Edwards, Italian Journey).

A ‘trulli’ farm, typical of the Puglia region

Jim Henderson, diarist of the 4^th and 6^th Reserve Mechanical Transport (RMT) Companies recorded their encounters with the local population: “By the end of October both RMT companies, still without their vehicles, were grouped near the little village of Altamura on the Bari-Altamura road... Pedlars promptly appeared. They seemed distinctly downtrodden after the spry Arab. They sold grapes, pomegranates, boot polish, nuts, postcards, and apples (some like Jonathans). Big green grapes went for 6d a pound, or two pounds for a packet of V cigarettes, probably the best bargain yet...”

 

Gravina

The great novelty of this first transfer was travelling in an inhabited country, on good roads, through a gently rolling countryside where there was always something to look at. The farmers among them, especially, found much to contemplate. In those days, agriculture in Italy was not mechanized, and they would have been fascinated to see oxen-drawn ploughs and horse-drawn carts, unfamiliar crops, and the farm labourers setting out on foot from the villages, carrying their implements. They were lucky, too, that the route to the front was largely across areas virtually untouched by the war - except for Foggia which, like Taranto, had been devastated by Allied bombing. The heavy damage there, and the mine warning notices along the road after Foggia, brought the men back to the reality of war.  

The second leg of the journey brought them past Lucera, another ancient town, rich in history and dominated by a great 12^th-century castle, to San Severo, the Division’s second staging point. The men did not miss the opportunity to visit the villages and hunt for souvenirs. They founded an impoverished population anxious to trade local goods for food, cigarettes, and cast-off clothing.

“Unofficial expeditions to the many nearby villages were made by men anxious to send home some souvenir of Italy before all stocks were snapped up. Lace and hats were the main items available for purchase or barter, and those with wives or sweethearts soon had parcels ready for despatch. Others without such attachments found that the local vino merchants offered at seven lire a litre wares much more to their taste.” (D. W. Sinclair, 19 Battalion and Armoured Regiment).

Lucera Castle

The third day’s journey took the Division first out to the Adriatic coast, by a winding, scenic route through attractive farmland, the great masserie the only buildings between villages. The diaries tell of vineyards and stone walls, steep hills speckled with small oak trees, well-graded, banked roads, and picturesque villages high on the hilltops. Once out to the coast, the troops could see the Adriatic beaches and certainly noticed the odd-looking trabocchi, the traditional coastal fishing structures.

A 'trabocco', the typical fishing structure of Abruzzo

The final 20 km stretch inland from the coastal town of Vasto (at the time known as Istonia), was a foretaste of what lay ahead. As the gently rolling countryside and straight roads gave way to increasingly steep, rugged hills, with sharp bends, and muddy deviations round blown bridges, the journey became slow and tedious.  If the passengers found the zig-zag roads, the ridges and gullies fascinating, the drivers were less enchanted.   

A first view north across the Sangro valley

More than one diarist or historian comments on the challenges of the topography and the roads. “Again and again the road wound up to the top of a hill and then down and round and up to the top of the next because the villages were built on the hilltops; it passed right through the villages with their narrow twisting streets, past the old and probably medieval church, through the square with its 1915–18 war memorial or statue to Garibaldi or some other hero of the Italian wars of unification, out past the cemetery with its stately cypress trees into the open country.” (Angus Ross, 23 Battalion). They had arrived in Abruzzo. The Sangro River, and their first battlefield in Italy, was just 64 km further north.

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