“Dad, I know about May 11 at 11 pm,” said Howard Gorrell to his father, Paul, after his return from Italy in 2001. Father’s face turned more pale white, and he gasped.
Photo by Danila Bracaglia
Traveling from Picayune, Mississippi, with her parents in 2016, Erin Newell (Dubuisson) looked at the ground under the water tower where her grandfather was near Tremensuoli, Italy, at 11 pm on May 11, 1944.
Tremensuoli-???
In 2015, two Italian historians, Giacinto Mastrogiovanni and Alessandro Campagna, guided me to look at the area where my dad and his army regiment were on the following morning after the 11 pm bombardment.
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On every May 11 morning from 1946 to 2022, Pvt. Martin Alder of Company D, 339th Regiment, 85th Division, woke up and said to his wife, “It’s 11-11.” (He died on May 17, 2023 - on the sixth day after the 11th)
Martin Adler | Photos provided by Rachelle Shelley Adler Donley
“Somewhere in Italy, on the 11th of May, we waited for our orders one cool, cloudy day. As we waited patiently and darkness drew near, we received our orders -To have no fear …,” wrote Staff Sergeant Marshall A. Webb, 339th Regiment of the 85th Division.
Posted on my Facebook page while I was on an all-deaf Italian tour on May 11, 2023 | View from the sunroof of Hotel Tiber in Fiumicino, Italy
What about May 11, 1944, at 11 pm in Tremensuoli, Italy?
The Spring Offensive commenced on May 11, 1944, at 23.00 (11 pm), when the massed artillery of two Allied armies - 1,600 guns on the Eighth Army front and 600 guns on the Fifth Army’s opened fire from Cassino to the sea. When the barrage lifted, twenty-five Allied divisions attacked.
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On May 10, 2014, Erin Newell wrote on her Facebook page:
My grandfather was one of the most honorable men of character I have ever met. Tomorrow would have been his 98th birthday. My dad wrote the following in his memory.
Lee Newell: May 11, 1916 – Jan 9, 2009
May 11 – his birthday and the 70th anniversary of the start of the Allied offensive in World War II known as Operation Diadem, breakthrough of the German Gustav line in southern Italy. This terrible battle commenced at 11 pm on his birthday, and Lee’s unit, Company M of the 3rd Battalion, 339th Infantry (Polar Bears), had the objective of moving through the shattered village of Tremensouli, Italy to attack German-occupied Hills 66 and 69.
The Germans held the high ground and had placed thousands of mines to halt the Polar Bear attack. As they assaulted these hills, many of the brave 339th Infantry soldiers were killed and maimed in most horrible manners, but the leaders kept the squads moving toward their objectives. The Third Battalion lost almost 66% of its fighting force in the first 10 hours of this battle. It was not until the morning of May 16 that sufficient replacements arrived for an attack to be mounted on both flanks of the German positions and take the objectives.
As part of the U.S. Fifth Army, the 339th Polar Bear regiment later participated in securing the city of Rome on June 5, 1944. During this time Lee had fought on through several weeks of continual combat with an injured arm due to being hit by shrapnel. It was not until after arriving in Rome that he was able to undergo surgery to have it removed.
Like many of his generation, he spoke very little of the horrors of war in places like Hill 66, but he finally became able to talk about some of his experiences as he became older.
On May 11, we remember his birthday and 70th Anniversary of the start of their brave push to Rome. We must never forget the sacrifices of men like Lee Newell.
Erin and her parents, Rhonda and Dale, visited the 339th Polar Bear Regiment Memorial in Tremensouli on May 19, 2016 | Photo by Danila Bracaglia
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“Dad has also told me about the amount of noise our troops made during the buildup of weapons and forces in the days before 11/11. He said there is no way they didn’t know what was coming,“ Martin Alder’s daughter, Rachelle Adler Donley, wrote on June 16, 2021. “It was a very scary experience for him. He remembers 11/11.”
After exploring the area for the first time, Gary Haskins wrote on his Facebook page on September 21, 2019:
This is at the Minturno Bridge on the Garigliano River. In the water behind me, my dad would have crossed a pontoon bridge to begin the attack on the Gustav line on May 11, 1944. The bridge pullers, you see were damaged when the Germans blew the bridge. The town you see in the distance is Minturno and the round concrete is a German machine gun bunker guarding the bridge.
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On May 11 of the few past years, Gail Albright Watson Brown repeatedly posted the following on her Facebook page:
On May 11, 1944, the Allies began an assault on the Germans' Gustav Line, believed to be impenetrable, when nearly 2000 cannons opened fire. The 337th was ordered to take Hills 66 & 69 (numbers are the heights of the hills). You can see these hills close to the middle of the map, under "San Martino". My father, 1st Lt. Harry Rudolph (Rudy) Albright, was a platoon leader, and this is where he was killed on May 12, 1944. Nearly his whole platoon was either killed or wounded.
At the Memorial Service for Capt. Paul Edward Gorrell, on September 9, 2013, Don Jones, Historian of the 337th Infantry Regiment, spoke:
# On May 11th, nearly all units of the US 5th Army and the British 8th Army moved to the front lines. Paul Gorrell’s Company D was assigned to advance toward Hill 141, while my dad’s Company C (both 1st Battalion) was initially in the reserve area.
# After all the training, the men of the 337th were ready to meet the enemy. Can you imagine the anticipation of waiting, waiting, waiting until H-Hour, set for 2300 or 11 pm? At EXACTLY this time, the artillery opened up with a magnificent barrage – most of the survivors recall this vividly, and the attack was on.
# Hill 66 today - where there is still debris of the battle (ammunition clips, shrapnel, etc.) and outlines of trenches where men dug in for protection.
# The fighting was brutal – the Germans were in a well-prepared defensive line (the Gustav Line), and on the afternoon of May 12, my dad’s company was called to help in the attack on Hill 66 and Hill 69. These were small yet key features of the German defensive line. After 3 days of horrific fighting, the hills were won, and the 85th Division moved on toward Rome.
# View from Castellonorato (first village taken by the 337th) with Hill 66 water tower visible in the center. Minturno is the hilltop town beyond Hill 66.
# For this action, Company C was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, equivalent to a Distinguished Service Cross for each member of Company C. The Distinguished Service Cross is our nation’s second-highest military award. To give you some idea of what these men achieved, only 18 men out of the original 185 were able to come down off the hill on their own.
# This was their first real combat – they met the test – and succeeded in opening the way for the 85th’s advance on Rome. Minturno helped turn the tide of the battle for Rome, but the 337th lost nearly one-fourth of its total WWII casualties during this first major engagement.
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Don Curtis, a 337th Regiment / Company C Veteran, wrote the poem below.
HILL 69
I’d like to tell you about my experience on the line The Night we took sixty-nine- May 11th at 11 “PM” Was the time set for the attack to begin? This hill was part of the Gustav line. The English had broken it but fell back each time. Now, it was time for the Yanks to try And each man was ready and willing to die. At 11 o’clock, we laid a barrage That will go down in history, none ever so large. The boys started out to this hell hole on earth Facing machine guns and artillery bursts. Through “Tremensouli,” we had to move fast, For it had the name of The Purple Heart Pass; To get in position, our chances looked slim For most of them, Jerry had all zeroed in. On the side of the hill, we had to dig in With mortar shells singing hell songs of sin; After twenty-three hours on this hill, we stayed And many brave men went to their graves. Each man prayed out loud and looked toward the sky, But the shells kept coming; brave men had to die We accomplished our mission and broke the strong line And Jerry pulled out, leaving wounded behind. After they started running, it wasn’t so bad The 337th gave them all that we had – We knew our object – it was to take Rome, And we knew that each step was nearer home. We marched through Rome on June the 5th Dirty and sore, tired and stiff, The only regret we had on our minds It was our buddies we left back on Hill 69.
Don Jones read the Hill 69 poem while Mastrogiovanni videoed it on September 26, 2016.
Historian Don Jones concluded at my dad’s memorial service:
The 337th lost almost 675 men in Italy…and we will NOT forget them. Through my research, I have met many other Americans who will not forget; I have met Italians who have said Thank You in their broken English for our father’s sacrifices.
We can do no less than say Thank You and by our presence here today, we Honor all of these brave men and women - especially our parents.
Sicily-Rome American Cemetery and Memorial | Photo by Howard Gorrell on September 23, 2019
