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Message 1 - Battle of Naples?

Posted on: 12 April 2005 by Peter - WW2 Site Helper

So far as I am aware, British V Corps (US 5th Army) surrounded Vesuvius on 30th September 1943. So you would have been on the slopes on either late afternoon on 30 September or 1 October, so what you saw were the closing stages of a civilian uprising.

The people of Naples rose against the Germans on 27 September triggered by the Germans plundering shops, requisitioning transport, and rounding up thousands for forced labour. The rising started in the afternoon when German soldiers began plundering a large shop in Via Roma. What started as a fracas and skirmish with knives ended with the Germmans retreating from the shop but firing back and killing a youth who was passing by and, following that, fighting quickly spread through the whole city.

Resistance took place from windows and rooftops from hundreds of improvised resistence fighters with improvised weapons and arms from dead Germans. The next day the fight was still raging and Colonel Scholl, the German area commander, brought up tanks against the insurgents, but at a very heavy cost in lives eight tanks were immobilised and set on fire, holding up other tanks behind them in the narrow streets. The struggle grew and barricades were erected. On 29 September there were furious engagements with more tanks brought in. In the evening a truce was declared for 30 September, to clear dead and wounded, but it quickly broke down and heavy fighting continued. It was on the evening of this day that the Germans withdrew from the city on news that the Allies had reached and surrounded Vesuvius.

The first Allied troops into Naples entered unopposed on 1 October 1943. They were the King's Dragoon Guards.

Peter