Admiral Calamai reached the Castle early on September 8, 1943. The radio had just broadcast General Eisenhower’s announcement from Algiers that an armistice had been signed with Italy. Everyone was convinced that the war was over and the Admiral was not surprised to see that the military and the Crown had finally handled the negotiations. But he also knew that Adolf Hitler would never acquiesce to a separate peace without seeking revenge. The Führer was prepared to react brutally against the Italian ‘traitors,’ and in particular the ‘decadent’ monarchist officer corps. Calamai knew that many German divisions were pouring into northern Italy and figured that he had only a few hours to salvage what he could. With a small group of reliable men he ordered the most sensitive material and documents loaded into two trucks and before leaving made sure the entire maze of tunnels and cavernous rooms was wired with explosives. That evening the Castle was rocked by multiple detonations that destroyed the most sensitive parts of the command center and training grounds. The trucks reached his farm around midnight long before the German units in the area could react. The documents were buried in garage pits normally used by the mechanics to repair farm machinery and tractor engines. The pits were then filled with sand and paved over with tar. By September 10 as the Germans began occupying all of northern Italy, he dismissed his men with three months’ pay, a set of civilian clothes, telling them to return home as quickly as possible. “Italy is the battleground and each man must decide for himself where his duty lies.”
The news that Mussolini had been miraculously liberated from his prison on the Gran Sasso Mountain in central Italy on September 12 was broadcast by German controlled radio. Fascist party diehards assembled in small groups loyal to the Germans and reestablished a new Fascist regime under German control. The Admiral sent his wife and their two daughters to safety in Switzerland while he left by train toward southern Italy.
By the end of September despite the mass confusion that existed everywhere, following a ten day journey Calamai managed to reach Naples. The German plan was to abandon most of southern Italy and dig in on the Gustav Line between Naples and Rome. Calamai went into hiding in the basement of an old building in the poor neighborhood of Forcella just a few hours before the first American troops arrived. The Admiral emerged in civilian clothes and reported to the American commanding officer in the area. One month later an Italian army loyal to the King was being formed in Naples and Admiral Vittorio Calamai was brought to the attention of an ONI officer in charge of investigating the Italian navy. Within days the Admiral was in charge of recruiting Italian naval officers and sailors for secret missions behind the lines to prepare for the Allied advance. It was thought that the Allied march up the Italian boot would proceed quickly because of the relatively painless occupation of Naples. But the Germans stopped the Allies on the Gustav Line and thwarted the landings at Anzio during the winter of 1943-1944 in a series of bloody battles.
Until the occupation of Rome on June 4, 1944 heavy fighting slowed the Allied advance. Then the American Fifth Army was on the move again north of Rome, quickly reaching the Arno River just south of Florence and Pisa. Ironically what was called the Arno Line by the Germans was a thinly held position on the northern bank of the river used as cover for the much more formidable line of defense located high up in the Appennine mountains a few kilometers north of the farm at Sant’Agata.
To the Admiral’s chagrin, Commander Ferri joined the Fascist government in Northern Italy and was now on the enemy side along with a small number of former fellow officers.
At the bar of the Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto a small group of boisterous American officers was letting off steam. The Admiral excused himself from his happy companions and was about to leave.
“Admiral Calamai?”
The Admiral turned slowly helping himself with his cane and for a few seconds didn’t recognize Kenneth Davis in uniform with a row of battle stars and campaign ribbons on his chest.
“Davis! What a surprise!”
The Admiral looked much older and thinner; he seemed to have lost the haughty self-assuredness that was his trademark. The war had taken its toll.
“I was sent here to work with the new Italian government and retrieve the foreign ministry archives, if that’s still possible.”
The Admiral managed to smile.
“I am happy to see you. Anything you can do to help Italy survive as we sink to the bottom of this disaster is most welcome…”
“Are you optimistic that it will end soon?”
“Yes, for purely military reasons. If we have time I’ll be glad to explain my thinking.”
“Yes Admiral, I think you may be right.”
The Admiral looked at Davis and a faint smile came over his face.
“I imagine you are no longer interested in certain operations of ours… aimed against you Americans.”
Davis immediately understood what Calamai was alluding to.
“Long range offensive operations…”
“Precisely.”
“Yes, we are -- but for now it’s best to keep all this in abeyance. Once the fighting stops I may contact you again.”
“History would be well served if these details are recorded somewhere.”
The front was moving quickly to the Arno River line at Florence and Pisa. The Germans were slowly retreating in the mountains behind Forte dei Marmi, Lucca, and Pistoia all the way to the Adriatic. A strip of fifteen kilometers had been cleared of all civilians while teams of forced labor stone masons and workers were digging and building pill boxes, machine gun nests and anti-tank defenses and ditches. This was the line Field Marshal Kesselring intended to hold at all costs. OSS operatives managed to secure the plans for a major defensive mountain position cutting across the Italian peninsula.
The documents detailing those plans were found miraculously intact in Kesselring’s former headquarters at the Monte Soratte north of Rome. The redoubt was mentioned as the Gothic Line but to confuse the enemy, the Abwehr had created a second set of false documents using the alternate name “Grüne Linie” or Green Line with a different location than the one actually being fortified. OSS concluded that there were two German defensive lines so the planned offensive was delayed because of poor weather and the confusion over the strength of the fortifications. The war would last another terrible winter.