“The 10th Mountain Division was an elite unit, trained to fight on skis, climb mountains, and thrive in cold weather.”

By Christopher Mars

THE NIGHT OF Feb. 18, 1945 promised to be a quiet one for the 50 or so German soldiers occupying the western side of the Pizzo di Campiano, a mountain in northern Italy’s Apennine chain.

Their position commanded Highway 64 3,000 feet below – a vital roadway the U.S. 5^th Army needed to continue its drive up the Italian Peninsula. If the Allies hoped to advance in safety, they’d need to clear the mountaintop, dubbed Riva Ridge, of enemy forces.

With 400 of their comrades dug in by the village of Fanano near the base and believing the eastern face of the mountain unscalable, the men of Hitler’s 1044th Grenadier Regiment dozed contentedly in their makeshift bivouacs.

Yet the sleeping Germans had no idea that their position was being quietly enveloped by a teams of elite American soldiers who’d climbed the strategically vital heights upon which the Wehrmacht troops were encamped. The raiders stealthily fanned out across the summit while their comrades did the same on three neighboring peaks.

When all was ready, the U.S. troops struck, taking the Germans by surprise. By dawn Riva Ridge was in Allied hands. Other summits would follow. The enemy counterattacked over the following five days, but were unable to recapture the important heights.

The operation was carried out by a then-obscure unit known as the 10^th Mountain Division. It was an auspicious combat debut for the 12,000-man outfit that was first formed four years earlier as an oddball experimental U.S. Army ski patrol – and one that many feared would never even end up seeing action.

The 10th Mountain was an elite division, trained to fight on skis, climb mountains, and thrive in cold weather. They trained in the mountains of Colorado, just south and west of the present-day ski resort of Vail, in the Pando Valley. Yet outside of Colorado, not much is known of the daring exploits of this unique division. And fighting on the “forgotten front” of Italy didn’t help matters. Thus, it became almost a “compulsion” of mine to write a novel about them (The Dark Side of the Mountain), to give these unsung heroes their due. Here are 10 facts about this remarkable fighting unit of the U.S. Army.

Finland’s Winter War proved the need for mountain troops

In 1940, many in the United States watched the Nazis blitzkrieg their way across Europe with growing concern. With Hitler chalking up one remarkable triumph after another, the prospect of German armies reaching the shores of North America was not at all considered far-fetched. And with the 200,000-man peacetime U.S. Army (200,000 men in all) no bigger than that of Spain, Romania or even Turkey, America would be hard-pressed to mount a defense. Some in the War Department envisioned Canada falling first to the Nazis, after which a southward thrust into the United States might be made down the Champlain Valley from Montreal. After all, the British had used that same invasion route during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. How would the United States defend itself in the face of such an invasion? Some looked to Finland, of all places, for the answer. In the winter of 1939 to 1940, the heavily outnumbered and outclassed Finns stubbornly resisted the invading Red Army for months, shocking the world and embarrassing the Soviets in the process. Time and again, Finnish ski troops ambushed much larger Soviet columns, then disappeared into the frozen woods. Could a German invasion of New England similarly be stopped in the rugged mountains of Vermont and northern New York by an army of American ski troops?

America’s mountain division was dreamed up by a civilian ski enthusiast

Enter Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole, a First World War veteran and founder of the U.S. National Ski Patrol. Drawing inspiration of the valiant Finns, Dole approached the U.S. Army in 1940 with the idea of an American mountain warfare division. A gifted organizer with deep connections in the New England skiing community, the professorial, bespectacled Dole lobbied Washington to form a brigade of alpine soldiers and even threatened to raise his own privately if need be. The brass gave in and in November of 1940, the Army Ski Patrol was formed. But with recreational skiing still in its infancy, there was virtually no one in the military who was at home on the slopes. As such, the army had no choice but to rely on civilian skiers to recruit and assess volunteers for the project. But it would take more than winter athletes to make a mountain division; the army also sought backwoodsmen, mountaineers and general ‘outdoorsy’ types. Many stepped forward.

Volunteers came highly recommended

Given the special nature of the unit, Dole was careful about the quality of recruits accepted. To weed out the riff-raff, he demanded not one, but three letters of recommendations to get into the experimental unit. The endorsements, which would come from ski coaches, teachers, and/or relatives, had to attest to a recruit’s skiing experience, familiarity with the outdoors, and general character. Dole reviewed the letters personally, judging whether or not to recommend an applicant. By the time of America’s entry into the Second World War, the Army Ski Patrol had been formed into the 87^th Mountain Infantry Battalion. In 1943, it would be incorporated into the 10^th Mountain Division at Camp Hale, Colorado.

The 10^th Mountain had to improvise its own gear

Being the U.S. Army’s first (and only) mountain fighting division, specifications simply didn’t exist for equipment that would suit their needs: cold weather sleeping bags, winter tents, alpine clothes, freeze-dried food, snowmobiles. The soldiers of the 10th tested skis, boots, portable stoves, ski wax, snowshoes, rucksacks, and pack frames. It didn’t end there. Mountaineering gear was also stockpiled: pitons, snap rings (forerunner of the carabiner), climbing ropes, along with knit caps, sun screen, mittens, goggles, gaiters, wool pants, parkas, crampons, ice axes, and even rubber air mattresses.

The division also needed four-legged recruits

The 10^th Mountain would need help hauling all that gear – along with rifles, machine guns, mortars, and light artillery pieces – up steep mountainsides or through deep snow. At a time when the rest of the army was buying up all the jeeps and trucks Detroit could produce, the 10^th was turned to lowly and sure-footed mules as their transport-of-choice. In fact, an estimated 5,000 Missouri mules would eventually be requisitioned by the division. Amazingly, none of these animals would be shipped overseas with the 10^th. A lack of space on transport ships meant the division would have to find new pack mules in-theatre.

The brass didn’t know what to do with its elite mountain troops

By the spring of 1944, the 10^th Mountain was still sitting out the war. In fact, Washington was beginning to question whether it needed ski soldiers at all. Not knowing what to do with its alpine warriors, the brass transferred the division from rocky Colorado to Camp Swift, deep in the heart of flat and sweltering Texas. With very future of the 10^th in doubt, morale in the division plummeted. The ranks of the unit had long since swelled with “flatlanders,” ordinary soldiers with no interest in mountaineering or skiing, and much of the original core of the unit had long since transferred out. But by the fall of 1944, with fighting on all fronts intensifying and casualties mounting, the army finally ordered the 10^th to Camp Patrick Henry, in Virginia, to begin preparations to ship out. But to where?

The 10th would be the last U.S. Army division to enter combat in WW2

Being the U.S. Army’s only mountain division, the War Department agonized over where to deploy its alpine fighters for maximum effect. Certainly not in the steamy jungles of the Pacific. Normandy, being flat, was also out. By the end of 1944, it seemed as if there was finally a job for the 10^th Mountain Division. The U.S. 5th Army, under Mark Clark, found itself trapped on Highway 64 beneath the Apennine Mountains. The Germans held the high ground and responded to any movement on the roads below with a rain of artillery fire. If Clark could somehow drive the enemy from the mountains, the 5^th could get rolling again and break out into the Po River Valley. It was a near-perfect scenario for a mountain unit. The 10^th took the Riva Ridge on Feb. 18, but the Germans were quick to reinforce the other peaks in the area. Brutal mountain fighting continued until April 20, when all the summits along Highway 64 had finally been conquered.

They never managed to actually fight on skis

After arriving in Italy in January, 1945, the division carried out only a handful of reconnaissance ski patrols, but that was it. The unit fought its way up Riva Ridge on foot. The same was the case when it took on the Wehrmacht in subsequent actions – no skiing was involved. To be sure, other aspects of the 10th’s training came into play, particularly rock climbing and being able to survive and fight in mountainous terrain. But as for ski combat, there was none.

The 10^th would fight on after WW2

Deactivated shortly after Germany’s surrender, the 10^th was reconstituted in 1948 as a training outfit only to be reclassified a standard infantry division in 1954 and sent to western Europe to reinforce the U.S. commitment to NATO there. In 1958, they were completely disbanded. In 1985, the 10^th Mountain Division was reformed as a rapid-deployment light infantry unit. Stationed at Fort Drum, in Watertown, New York, on the eastern edge of Lake Ontario, they would eventually be deployed to the Persian Gulf in 1990, Somalia in 1992, Haiti in 1994 and the former Yugoslavia in 1998. Most recently, the 10^th would see action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Christopher Mars is the author of The Dark Side of the Mountain, a historical novel about the 10^th Mountain Division’s assault on Riva Ridge. It’s published by Illumify Media Global.