How the 10th Mountain Division's Breakthrough Paved the Way for the War's Largest Axis Surrender
GERMANY’S SOUTHERN FRONT—While focus often falls on the Western Front’s thunderous battles, an equally crucial—and frequently overlooked—war raged among the rugged peaks and valleys of the Italian Peninsula. This long, bitter campaign, the Allies’ first breach into Germany’s Fortress Europe, tied down more than half a million German and Italian Axis troops in a relentless, resource-draining struggle that lasted twenty-two grueling months.
In its final months, the U.S. 10th Mountain Division arrived. In February 1945, during Operation Encore, these elite mountaineers became the hammer that seized Riva Ridge and, days later, the sledgehammer that smashed the Belvedere–Gorgolesco–della Torraccia strongpoint. Their epic charge shattered the German Gothic Line, opening a direct route into the Po Valley for the multinational U.S. Fifth Army.
The breakthrough set the stage for the climactic Operation Grapeshot. As the 10th spearheaded the Fifth Army through the Apennines, the British Eighth Army struck from the Adriatic coast in a synchronized, two-pronged offensive that utterly shattered German defenses.
On 2 May 1945, Army Group C surrendered unconditionally. Nearly one million soldiers laid down their arms—the largest capitulation of the war to that date and the first complete collapse of a German army group in Europe.
This monumental defeat on the Southern Front, together with the Allied crossing of the Rhine and the Red Army’s relentless drive on Berlin, sealed the Third Reich’s fate and crowned the grueling Italian campaign with ultimate victory.