Operation Grapeshot | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Italian Campaign of the Second World War | |||||||
British troops of the 5th (Huntingdonshire) Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment, part of 11th Brigade of 78th Division, pick their way through the ruins of Argenta, 18 April 1945. | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
United States Poland Italy Brazil New Zealand South Africa Italian Resistance |
Germany Italian Social Republic | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Harold Alexander Mark Clark Lucian Truscott Richard McCreery |
H. von Vietinghoff Traugott Herr J. Lemelsen Benito Mussolini Rodolfo Graziani | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
Total: 1,333,856[2][nb 1] 5th Army: 266,883 fighting strength[2] Eighth Army: 632,980 fighting strength[3] |
Total: 585,000[4] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
16,258 casualties[nb 2] incl. 2,860 killed [5] | 30–32,000 casualties[nb 3] |
The Spring 1945 offensive in Italy, codenamed Operation Grapeshot, was the final Allied attack during the Italian Campaign in the final stages of the Second World War.[6] The attack in the Lombard Plain by the 15th Allied Army Group started on 6 April 1945 and ended on 2 May with the surrender of all Axis forces in Italy.
Cite error: There are <ref group=nb>
tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=nb}}
template (see the help page).