Brazilian Expeditionary Force on WW2

The BEF achieved battlefield successes at Massarosa, Camaiore, Monte Prano, Monte Acuto, San Quirico, Gallicano, Barga, Monte Castello, La Serra, Castelnuovo, Soprassasso, Montese, Paravento, Zocca, Marano su Panaro, Collecchio and Fornovo. The first missions the Brazilians undertook were reconnaissance operations to the end of August. Brazilian troops helped to fill the gap left by divisions of the Fifth Army and French Expeditionary Corps that left Italy for Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France. On September 16, the 6th RCT took Massarosa. Two days later it also took Camaiore and other small towns on the way north. By then, the BEF had already conquered Monte Prano, and taken control of the Serchio valley without any major casualties. After having suffered its first reverses around Barga city, and after the arrival of the 1st RCT at the end of October, the BEF was directed to the base of the Apennines where it would spend the next months facing the harsh winter and the resistance of the Gothic Line.[7]. Allied forces were unable to break the Gothic Line over the winter and an offensive by German and Italian divisions to the right of the BEF led to serious losses in US 92nd Division, which required the assistance of the 8th Indian Infantry Division to contain the offensive. Between the end of February and beginning of March 1945, the Brazilian Division and the U.S. 10th Mountain Division were able to capture important positions on the Apennines, which deprived the Germans of artillery positions on the mountains. This made the breaking of the Gothic Line and the consequent Spring offensive practicable. In the US 5th Army's sector, the final offensive on the Italian Front began on April 14, after a bombardment by 2,000 heavy bombers and 2,000 artillery pieces, with an attack carried out by the troops of US IV Corps, commenced by the Brazilian Division, that took Montese, breaking the Germans' lines to the North. The Polish Division, from the British 8th Army, and the U.S. 34th Infantry Division, from the US 5th Army, entered Bologna on 21 April. On 25 April the Italian resistance movement started a general partisan insurrection at the same time as the Brazilians troops arrived at Parma and the Americans at Modena and Genova. The British VIII Army advanced towards Venice and Trieste. From then on, the main task facing the Allied forces in Italy was pursuing the enemy. After capturing a large number of Germans at Collecchio, the Brazilian forces were preparing to face fierce resistance at the Taro river region from the retreating German-Italian forces of the region of Genoa/La Spezia that had been set free by troops of the 92nd US Division. These German troops were surrounded near Fornovo and after some fighting surrendered. On April 28, the Brazilians captured more than 20 thousand men, including the entire 148th Infantry Division, elements of the 90th Panzergrenadier and the last former Division of the Italian Fascist Army. Generalleutnant Otto Fretter-Pico surrending to Brazil's FEB in Italy.This took the German Command by surprise as it had planned for these troops to join forces with the German-Italian Army of Liguria to counterattack against the US 5th Army. The US 5th army had advanced, as is inevitable in these situations, in a fast but diffuse and disarranged way uncoordinated with air support, and had left some gaps on its left flank and to the rear. The Nazi-Fascist forces had left intact many bridges throughout the Po River to facilitate a counter-attack. The German Army Command was already negotiating a truce in Caserta, and hoped that a counterattack would improve the conditions for surrender. The events in Fornovo disrupted the German plan, as much by the dissarray of their troops as by the delay it caused. [8] This, added to the news of Hitler's death and the fall of Berlin to the Red Army, left the German Command in Italy with no option but to accept the unconditional surrender of its troops. In their final advance, the Brazilians reached Turin and then on 2 May they joined up with French troops at the border in Susa. That same day brought the announcement of the end of hostilities in Italy.