The 85th Divison, reinforced by small units of tanks and tank destroyers and preceded by the 85th Recon Trop, had headed for Camposanto.  When the first elements arrived at the Camposanto bridge in the early morning of 22 April, and looked across to the town on the northern bank, they found, as elements of the 6 South African Armored Division had found the day before, that the bridge had not yet been demolished but that the enemy was ready to defend it.  Cpl. Anthony J. Augustine of B Co., 310th Engineer Battalion, 85th Infantry Division swam across the river and cut the wires by which it might have blown the bridge.  However, the town was so strongly held, that the crossing could not be made before nightfall.

   The Po River was wide, with sandy banks.  Little was known about the tactical situation on the northern bank, as the 10th Mountain Division prepared to cross it in assault boas.  The enemy remained quiet until the assault forces were concentrated, then fired heavily into the assembly area.  The 1st Battalion, 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment, followed by the remainder of the regiment, led the assault.  On the northern bank, they built up a bridgehead during the afternoon of 23 April despite artillery, mortar, and the rifle fire.  The other two regiments crossed before morning, assisted by a battalion of amphibian trucks (DUKWs).

   IV Corps engineers had a cable ferry operating by the next afternoon, and pushed the construction of pontoon and the treadway bridges for use soon afterward.  Here, then was the first Allied crossing in a single day of a barrier supposed to hold up all pursuit for several days, at least.  But it was only the first of many.  At Quingentole, in the IV Corps zone, the 85th Division forced a second crossing a few hours later, on 24 April.

   II Corps struck northward to the Po from the vicinity of Bologna on 21 April.  The enemy was able to pull back from Eighth Army’s attack on the east before an encirclement northeast of Bologna could be effected.  Elements of II Corps were delayed by the determined resistance of covering forces on the west flank of German Tenth Army, but the 88th Division, farthest west, found the enemy in its path more disorganized.  This division made a speedier advance to the Panaro, and crossed it on a small, partly demolished bridge east of Camposanto (at the same time that the 85th Division was crossing via the Camposanto bridge), and in rubber assault boats and other improvised ferrying facilities.  On 23 April, as Fifth Army shifted the boundary between II and IV Corps somewhat to the west, the 88th Division on the western flank of II Corps seized control of Hiway 12 and the Revere-Ostiglia crossing.

   The 88th Division’s advance to reach the Po on 23 April had been swift.  Its elements next fanned out along the south bank to round up enemy stragglers.  The Germans were trying to assemble their many disorganized units in this area for escape to the far side of the Po, so that the 88th Division in 48 hours collected hordes of prisoners, estimated to total 11,000.  The same story was true of the 91st Division farther east.  By nightfall, 24 April, 60 miles of the southern bank of the Po was held by II and IV Corps, while considerable forces had already crossed.  The enemy south of it had surrendered so many men and abandoned such quantities of equipment, that, along with what had been destroyed, any prolonged and effective resistance north of the Po seemed no longer possible.

    Not all the enemy south of the Po had been rounded up, but those that remained were often in disorganized small units of groups of stragglers whom Italian partisans flushed from hiding and turned over to Allied troops.  Some die-hard elements had to be subdued, but many of the enemy were ready to quit.  Those Germans who got across the Po were intent on reaching the routes of escape from Italy into German-held territory.  The operations, which ensued from 24 Aril to 2 May, therefore, was largely a contest in mobility, a race to the exits, and then a large-scale mopping up.

                           Both quoted from Custer Combateer, Vol 1, No. 3, May 1945 
                        This was a newspaper printed for the soldiers after the war ended.