I'm John Batsch who with James Holland. The new book is The Savage Storm, Italy

1943. The fifth army up the Western Shore, the 8 Army up the Eastern Shore of Italy, up the

Peninsula.

The Kesselring Forces dig in. The Bernhard Line and the Gustav Line. The Gustav Line is the one that Kesselring knows will hold or believes will hold. The Bernhard Line, however however is equally strong. These are river

systems and mountains and passes that very much make it difficult for any

military to cut through the past because you know where they're going to be.

You can train your guns on them.

And the artillery is constant.

One of the things that James makes clear is, it's raining, it's raining and raining. And is it's raining it's raining and

and if it stops raining the skies are filled with bombers and when it starts again the

bombers don't come so the air power that the allies have enjoyed comes and

goes through October into November that the

power that the Allies have enjoyed comes and goes through October into November.

We come now to the Bernhard line and the Gustav line.

Because the mission now has been achieved and that's a puzzle to me as a reader James.

They have Naples, they have Fosia, they've drawn the Germans into the peninsula. They've withdrawn divisions for

overlord and yet they're anxious that the Germans will counterattack and then I

counted up the German divisions. The allies are outnumbered at this

point, correct, James?

Yep, yep, yeah, they are in terms of manpower, not in terms of firepower, but they are in terms

of manpower, you know know and that's that's

significant because you know the rule of thumb is you should never attack unless you've got a

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