Prelude
As a preliminary to the main operation, a commando assault (Operation Roast) was launched across Lake Comacchio on 1 April to secure the right flank of the Eighth Army for the coming battle to seize "the Spit", the narrow isthmus between the eastern shore of Lake Comacchio and the Adriatic Sea. This would secure the eastern flank of the Eighth Army and also allow trials to be carried out in secret of the suitability of using newly arrived LVT tracked landing craft for subsequent larger operations in the muddy and difficult conditions of Lake Comacchio. The operation was successful, although the LVTs failed dismally, becoming hopelessly bogged down. It was in this raid that Corporal Thomas Peck Hunter of 43 Commando posthumously received the Victoria Cross for his actions. Two nights later further actions by the Special Boat Service (SBS) supported by Italian Partisans of the 28th Garribaldi Brigade captured islands in the middle of the lake. Danish national, Major Anders Lassen a patrol commander of the Special Boat Service (SBS) was killed in a subsequent fighting reconnaissance and was awarded a Victoria Cross posthumously.
56th Infantry Division also made a preliminary attack on 5/6 April to secure its starting line for the Argenta gap operation. By 8 April, after meeting stiff resistance, it had completed its task in clearing "the Wedge", an area from the southern tip of Lake Comacchio where it meets the Reno river to the Fossa di Navigazione.
The main Eighth Army offensive across the Senio river commenced on 9 April and by 12 April the assault units had advanced to consolidate across the Santerno river and allow 78th Infantry Division to pass through towards the Reno river and the Argenta gap. The Argenta Gap was a well defended strip of land some 2 miles (3.2 km) wide and 8 miles (13 km) deep between Lake Comacchio and the Lombardy marshes, south of the town of Ferrara.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of The Argenta Gap
Famous quotes containing the word prelude:
“I am a prelude to better players, O my brothers! An example! Follow my example!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I got a little secretarial job after college, but I thought of it as a prelude. Education, work, whatever you did before marriage, was only a prelude to your real life, which was marriage.”
—Bonnie Carr (c. early 1930s)